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THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 






















THE EXILE 
OF THE LARIAT 


BY 


/ .... 


Iiwa^W HONORE WILLSIE 

V 

Author of “The Enchanted Canyon,” “Judith 
of the Godless Valley,” “Still Jim,” 
“The Heart of the Desert,” etc. 



•> * 
> i ’ 


NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 


MCMXXIII 













Copyright, 1923, by 
The Ridgwav Company 

Copyright, 1923, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 


All rights reserved 





Printed in the United States of America 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I Christmas . i 

II Fort Sioux.31 

III Uncle Bookie. 49 

IV Miriam. 7 2 

V The Man Grafton. 93 

VI Mrs. Ellis .no 

VII Wild Horses. 129 

VIII The Gray Stallion.148 

IX The Hearing.168 

X The Dinosaur. 188 

XI Big Fang.206 

XII The Lone Spring Vote.226 

XIII The Governor Elect. 239 

XIV The Last Fight for the Code .... 263 

XV Christmas Again. 275 

XVI Jessie. 294 

XVII The Old Ranch. 3 : 5 

XVIII Riding the Gray Stallion.330 










THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 
























THE EXILE 
OF THE LARIAT 


CHAPTER I 

CHRISTMAS 

S O the fine adventure had failed. Not but what Hugh 
knew that on the morrow he would begin to plan 
another and equally fine adventure. Yet he and Fred and 
old Red Wolf were as deeply depressed as though all the 
fossil remains of Wyoming had been destroyed when 
the slide had crushed the newly exposed body of the giant 
dinosaur. To be sure, Red Wolf, after the first shock of 
failure had passed, had tried to tell Hugh of a certain 
fabulous cliff dwelling full of bones, sacred to the mys¬ 
terious origins of the Sioux tribe. But Hugh, disappointed 
and bereft, would not listen. He gave orders to break 
camp and the start for home was made two hours after 
the south slope of the mountain had jealously recovered the 
remains of that gigantic memory of the past. 

The mountain bordered the extreme west line of the 
Old Sioux Tract. The Roaring Chief river paralleled 
the west line of the Tract, fifteen miles to the east. Be¬ 
tween lay a rugged upheaval of mountains and canyons, 

deep now in December snows. 

It was mid-morning when Hugh led the way out of the 
camp under the lee of the mountain, southeastward into 
the wild valley that lay between the fossil peak and the 
fiat-topped plateau known chiefly as the haunt of wild 

i 


2 


THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

horses. Save for occasional gnarled cedar clumps, the 
brilliant orange and red sides of the peak and the plateau 
were barren. Even the snow had been unable to cling to 
those steep, hard walls. But the floor of the valley was 
covered with quivering aspens whose pastel-green trunks 
and delicate gray boughs were set too thick to permit the 
passage of a rider. Hugh led the little caravan along 
the rough snowy space that remained open between the 
wall of the plateau and the aspen grove. 

The going was extremely rough. Hugh sat tense in 
the saddle, spurring his horse, Fossil, over rock heaps and 
through drifts as though he found mental easement in 
doubling thus the difficulties of the trail. Fred Allward, 
the little gray-bearded man who drove the freight wagon, 
and old Red Wolf, driving the sheep wagon, huddled in 
their mackinaws, swore at the mules and glanced askance 
at Hugh. 

Hugh, in spite of the tensity of his seat, rode with the 
easy assurance of one bred to the saddle. He showed thin 
and muscular even through his mackinaw and corduroy 
riding breeches. A round beaver skin cap, pulled low, hid 
all his hair save a thick chestnut lock that blew across his 
forehead. His face was long and thin like his body, with 
high cheek bones and a long jaw line that showed sharply 
beneath his ears. There were lines around his gray eyes, 
drawn there by sun strain, by irritation and by humor. 
It was by no means a handsome face—though it clearly 
showed a fine intelligence. His mouth alone was beauti¬ 
ful. It was full curved and sensitive; a curiously ardent 
mouth to dwell in so fine-drawn a face. Hugh was in the 
thirtieth year of his age. 

It was three o’clock when he led the way out of the 
narrow valley into a wider one, blue with snow and tree¬ 
less save for a grove of spruce a mile to the north. Hugh 


CHRISTMAS 


3 

headed directly for this grove, and Fred sighed with relief 
and lighted his pipe. 

Hugh, too, suddenly conscious of the unbelievable 
beauty about him, relaxed a little in the saddle. A world 
of blue sky and snow and distant heaven-kissing peaks. 
Even the spruce trees, as he led toward them, showed a 
true, though darker, blue, against the snow. The great 
bronze cones, massed in the higher boughs of the trees, 
gave the only variety to the great monotone. 

At the edge of the grove, Hugh turned in the saddle. 
“Let’s make camp, boys!” he called. 

Fred pulled his mules to their haunches so suddenly 
that Red Wolf’s team bumped their noses on the tailboard 
of the freight wagon. Red Wolf grunted, swung his 
mules clear and leaped over their flinging hind legs to the 
ground. He began to unhitch at once while Fred built 
the fire in the little stove in the sheep wagon and Hugh, 
with his gun over his arm, followed new rabbit tracks that 
led into the grove. 

It was dusk when the three men crowded into the sheep 
wagon to eat supper. It was as snug within as the cabin 
of a tiny ship. There were bunks at one end of the wagon, 
a little stove and kitchen fittings at the other. In the 
middle, a narrow table that lifted against the frame of 
the canopy when not in use. When all the fried rabbit had 
been devoured and the third round of coffee begun, Hugh 
broke the silence by saying, “Well, I’m sorry I went loco 
this morning, boys. But that was the most nearly perfect 
specimen I’ve ever seen, and it was nothing but fool care¬ 
lessness that lost him to us.” 

“My carelessness, mostly,” grunted Fred, draining his 
coffee cup, then taking a huge bite of plug. “You’d think 
I’d have learned how to shore up a wall after thirty years 
of mining.” 


4 


THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“An autopsy isn’t going to bring back the dinosaur,” 
sighed Hugh. “We’ll get back to Fort Sioux and outfit 
for prospecting Lost Basin. The snows won’t get in there 
before February.” 

Red Wolf, his lean, wrinkled, bronze face concentrated 
above the cigarette he was rolling, gave no apparent heed 
to these comments. But when he had lighted the cigarette 
he looked thoughtfully at Hugh. 

“Sioux Injuns,” he said, “know heap more ’bout Old 
Sioux Tract than whites do.” 

Hugh returned the old Indian’s look with sudden inter¬ 
est. “Does that mean you’ve got a story to tell me, Red 
Wolf?” 

The old Sioux continued to stare at Hugh. He and the 
young scientist had been friends since Hugh’s childish 
days of arrow-head collecting. But even at that, it was 
obvious that Red Wolf was wondering whether or not to 
speak. Fred jammed another cedar knot into the stove, 
piled the dishes in a pan, heaped the pan high with snow 
and set it on a red-hot lid. Then he established his feet on 
the hearth, took another bite of plug and waited. Finally 
Red Wolf said, in his husky, carefully modulated voice: 

“Your Uncle Bookie, he owns Old Sioux Tract, but he 
never use it. Great Spirit won’t let ’em. You know 
why?” 

Hugh shook his head. “Uncle Bookie’s been as secret 
with me about the Tract as he has with every one else.” 

“That’s all bunk !” exclaimed Fred. “Everybody knows 
the Old Sioux Tract is mixed up in Bookie’s mind with 
Jimmie Duncan and the cattle wars of the eighties. Some 
of us always did think Bookie knew a lot about Jimmie’s 
disappearance.” 

“O dry up, Fred!” growled Hugh, as he lighted his 
pipe. “Uncle Bookie was a little wild as a young fellow, 


CHRISTMAS 


S 

but he’d never be morbid about it. Fact is, I think he’s 
as proud of the notches on his gun as he is of The Lariat.” 

“A little wild!” snorted Fred. “Say, Hughie, you 
young fellows that have always put Bookie down as a 
gentle old has-been would drop dead if you could see that 
man’s man as he was in the old days. He come out here 
full of Harvard education and everybody laughed at him. 
But before he’d been here five years, he’d settled the cattle 
war at the point of his gun, helped himself to what land 
he wanted from the old Frisco gang he’d rid out and 
settled down to ranch life. Just how he did it, or how 
many notches he carries on that old six-shooter of his, 
only Bookie knows.” 

Hugh nodded. “I’ve always known that. Nevertheless 
I always thought his feeling against any use being made 
of the Old Sioux Tract had something to do with an old 
love affair.” 

“You’re crazy, Hughie! No woman’s influence could 
last that long with a he-man, like Bookie.” 

Hugh shrugged his shoulders, thought of Jessie, and 
turned to Red Wolf, who was listening patiently. 

“Why don’t the Great Spirit let Uncle Bookie use the 
Tract, Red Wolf?” he asked. 

“This valley,” said the Sioux, “run ten miles over to 
river canyon.” 

“I know,” nodded Hugh. 

“All Injuns of the world,” Red Wolf went on, “Great 
Spirit borned them in this valley, by river. Long, long 
time ago, before any white man was born on earth* the 
Great Spirit, he made a few Injuns and put ’em in this 
valley and showed ’em trail lead to cave, above river. 
‘Injuns/ said Great Spirit, ‘you live there. You stay there. 
You be safe. You have many children. You rule earth, 
if you stay here and no fight. No fight yourselves. When 


6 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

one Injun first fight other Injun then world be full of 
trouble for all Injuns.’ ” 

Hugh listened with kindling interest. Fred’s bearded 
face was expressionless. 

“Injuns had many, many children,” Red Wolf went on. 
“Soon cave pretty near full of Injuns. But they never 
fight. Pretty happy. Then, one day, young Injun, he 
made bow and arrow, first one ever made on earth. He 
make mistake and shoot other boy. That start terrible 
fight. All Injuns take sides, make bows and arrows, kill 
each other till only one Injun man, one Injun squaw left. 
And they bleed much. Then Great Spirit, he heap mad. 
He drive out man and woman. He break up trail to cave. 
He say no Injun ever can come back. He put Devil Beast 
in to watch cave. Devil Beast he eat any Injun that come 
back to cave. Injuns, they never had home since. They 
no can have home till some one kill the Devil Beast, take 
him out of cave. Then Injuns they come back to cave, 
have many children, rule earth.” 

“Has any one ever seen the Devil Beast, Red Wolf?” 
asked Hugh. 

“Blood curse on any Injun ever try to get down to 
cave,” replied the Sioux evasively. 

Hugh eyed his old friend thoughtfully. “What do you 
suppose that Devil Beast looks like, Red Wolf?” 

Red Wolf shook his head. “I don’t know. But old, 
old chief told my father he look like stone devil, slide cover 
up this morning.” 

Hugh lifted his head excitedly. “Lord, Red Wolf, why 
haven’t you told me this before?” 

“We never dig up devil look like this before,” replied 
the Indian, as if the answer were final. 

“Naturally not,” said Hugh. “One doesn’t go out and 


CHRISTMAS 


7 

dig up a Triceratops every morning before breakfast. 
Show me where this cave is, Red Wolf.” 

The old Sioux scowled and rolled another cigarette 
before he replied. 

“You get that Stone Devil uncovered, ready to move 
out of mountain. Great Spirit send slide, take him back. 
All Injuns but me they heap much afraid of Stone Devils. 
Now me heap afraid.” 

“Maybe it’s meant for Indians to be afraid,” said Hugh. 
“But also, it’s evidently meant that the white man must 
take that Devil out of the cave. You let me have a look 
at him, old boy.” 

“Maybe it’s just naturally unlucky, Hughie,” Fred 
spoke cautiously. “Must be some kind of bad medicine 
connected with it because the Indians never talk about it 
to the whites. This is the first time I ever heard of it.” 

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Hugh, “as if there were any 
reason why an Indian ever should tell a white anything!” 

Red Wolf nodded. “Whites, heap big liars, always 
laugh at Injuns. All but Hughie.” 

“Go on, you big red man!” shouted Fred. “Did you 
ever have a better friend than me?” 

“He, a better friend,” replied Red Wolf, pointing at 
Hugh. Then he added anxiously, “You not afraid?” 

“Not a bit,” returned Hugh. “We’ll camp on the canyon 
edge tomorrow evening. Come on! Let’s get to bed and 
have an early start.” 

They covered the ten snow-packed miles before dusk 
the next afternoon. The valley sloped rapidly toward the 
river, so speed was possible despite the difficulties of 
the trail. All signs of trees, even of sage brush, dis¬ 
appeared before they reached the end of the day’s journey. 
They made the night camp in a shallow draw which opened 
into the river canyon. 


8 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

The moon rose before supper was ready, and Hugh, 
having hobbled Fossil to the mutual satisfaction of him¬ 
self and the horse, stood at the canyon end of the draw, 
staring down at the vague black tracing of the river below. 

He had little doubt that Red Wolf’s story was founded 

► 

upon some actual tragedy of the past and all the scientist 
in him was on tip-toe with interest. Somewhere beneath 
the keen, fossil-hunting paleontologist which was the 
Hugh his wife and friends knew, there might have been 
a Hugh as ardent, that night, as his sensitive mouth sug¬ 
gested. Yet, Hugh himself was unconscious of the fact, 
for though thrilled by the beauty of the scene, he was 
wishing, not that Uncle Bookie, or Jessie, his wife, were 
sharing the wonder of the night with him. He was wish¬ 
ing that he were sufficiently the artist to reproduce the 
magic of this fossil country for his report on this the most 
tantalizing and so far the most disappointing of his 
expeditions. 

Considering his claim that he never had been in the 
cave, Red Wolf showed a surprising accuracy of knowl¬ 
edge as to the best method of reaching that place of 
mystery. 

“Can’t climb down,” he said that evening in reply to 
Hugh’s query. “Cave maybe fifty feet down and under. 
Can’t see from top. You have let us lower you down, 
then you have swing yourself under. See?” 

Hugh nodded. “That new one-inch manila will come 
in right.” 

Fred grunted. “You’ve got more enthusiasm over stone 
birds than I have, Hughie.” 

“You’d risk it for a mine discovery, without turning a 
hair, Fred,” chuckled Hugh. 

“Right!” agreed Fred, “but not for Injun bones.” 

Nevertheless, the next morning when the three men 


CHRISTMAS 


9 

crept to the edge of the river canyon and peered over at 
the receding wall, Fred insisted that his be the privilege 
of making the initial trip. Hugh, his eyes bright and 
eager, laughed at him. 

“I’m the Columbus of this expedition, Fred! Here, 
ease this knot under my shoulder blade. I wouldn’t miss 
being the first down for a thousand dollars.” 

“You’re risking a good deal on an Injun’s pipe dream,” 
insisted Fred. “And supposing there is a jinx on the 
place like he says.” 

Red Wolf stared at Fred impersonally, then turned to 
Hugh. 

“You got your hammer?” 

“Yes, inside my coat. I’ll use the pick to help fend me 
from the wall. Come on, boys, lower away. Snub to the 
wagon axle when I shout.” 

Hugh seated himself on the icy edge of the brim which 
was still slippery in spite of Fred’s efforts to roughen it 
with his axe. Then he slid slowly out into space, turning 
as he did so to face the canyon wall. This receded gently 
but decidedly, so that by the time he had been lowered 
twenty feet he was almost beyond arm reach of its smooth 
red face. He gave himself a gentle push, calling to the 
men to let the rope out rapidly. By the time he had 
reached a black opening in the menacing red wall, he was 
oscillating gently back and forth. 

“Snub her, quick, Fred!” he shouted. He worked his 
long body pendulum-like now until the gentle oscillation 
had increased to a wide stroke that carried him far out 
above the sickening depths below, then well into the door 
of the cave. He flung his pick axe into the opening and 
grasped the side of the orifice, slid for a painful moment, 
then, a little white and breathless, stood firmly within the 
cave. He untied the rope and looped it over a black cedar 


IO THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

log that projected into the doorway, then he looked about 
him. 

The light of the rising sun flooded the cave. First he 
saw a level stone floor, littered with human bones, with 
arrow heads and stone axes; a red floor with bones ghastly 
white, and in pathetically entangled heaps, telling of death 
throes horrible to contemplate. From the embattled floor 
Hugh’s eyes lifted to the wall of the cave, which was per¬ 
haps a hundred feet deep but which did not, at that, stretch 
beyond the rays of the sun. And when his eyes had fallen 
on the rear wall, he gave a low exclamation and forgot the 
tragic story at his feet as though it did not exist. 

At the rear of the cave, ten feet above the floor, was 
a projecting mass of stone that the merciless red light of 
the sun pricked out in a horror of detail that instantly 
accounted for Red Wolf’s tale of fear and mystery. A 
gigantic bony head—the head of a horned toad magnified 
to the proportions of an elephant—a head with gaping, 
sagging lower jaw, armored with enormous teeth, with 
horned snout lifted as if it sniffed perpetually after an 
ever present enemy, with cavernous eye sockets, that 
glowered with horrible simulation of vision upon the 
scene of ancient carnage. 

Hugh paused beneath the terrible skull long enough to 
observe the broken remains of an ancient altar that lay 
on the floor, then with infinite care he clambered up to 
examine the marvelous discovery. After a few moments 
of ecstatic exploration, he went back to fetch the pick. 
With infinite care he then prospected the entire rear wall 
of the cave and in a short time had satisfied himself that 
just beneath the surface of the rock lay the remains of a 
dinosaur whose rarity and perfection surpassed any of 
his previous discoveries. Conscious finally of the increas¬ 
ing cold as the sun deserted the cave, he returned to the 


CHRISTMAS 


ii 


entrance and knotted the rope under his arms. Then only 
did he note that a skeleton, clad in an old overcoat, sat 
crouched within the shadow of the opening. 

He knelt hastily, and with great care examined the 
clothing. His face was troubled when he had finished, 
and he stood for a time in anxious thought before shout¬ 
ing to Fred and Red Wolf to pull him up. He was entirely 
absent-minded as he spiraled upward and made the difficult 
scramble over the edge quite automatically. 

“My Gawd, Hughie,” shouted Fred, when the young 
man finally stood panting beside him, “I hope you dis¬ 
covered free gold to pay for the scare you give me and 
Red Wolf.” 

“It’s a wonder, Fred!” said Hugh, seriously. “A won¬ 
der ! A triceratops, without a doubt.” 

“I suppose that means something to you!” snorted 
Fred. “How about me and the Injun?” 

Hugh turned to Red Wolf. “You were right, old man. 
It’s the same kind of a stone devil that we lost under the 
slide, only a good deal bigger and with a perfect skull, 
which the other didn’t have. We’ll get him out of there, 
all right.” 

Red Wolf scratched his head, thoughtfully. “You see 
many dead Injuns down there? You see anything else?” 

“How do you mean, anything else?” demanded Hugh 
quickly. The Indian shrugged his shoulders and turned 
away. 

“What’s the idea?” asked Fred, suspiciously. 

“The idea is,” replied Hugh, “that it’s not going to be 
so hard to get the specimen exhumed, but that it is going 
to be the very devil to get him out of the cave. I believe 
that the best way will be to lower the cases down to the 


river. 


12 


THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Fred nodded. “All right, only you can’t get a boat up 
Roaring Chief river in the winter.” 

“I know,” agreed Hugh. “But I have a feeling that if 
I don’t get that old brute out now, I won’t get him out 
at all.” 

“What’s the matter? Got bitten by the bad medicine 
idea?” 

Hugh laughed. “Maybe! Anyhow, I’m going to get 
at the preliminary work this afternoon. I’ll have some¬ 
thing to eat, then I’ll go down again and you folks can 
lower the packing cases and the rest of the materials 
to me.” 

“What’s the matter with me?” demanded Fred. “Don’t 
I qualify as a bone miner any more?” 

“You’ll think you do tomorrow morning when we begin 
to get that head out,” replied Hugh. “We’ll never get 
Red Wolf within a mile of it.” 

“I ain’t just drooling to get at it myself,” said Fred, 
“but I aim to keep step with you in nerve if not in brains. 
All I complain about is that your idea of what’s free gold 
and mine don’t hitch.” He gave Hugh a grin that was 
not without admiring affection, and began preparations 
for dinner. 

They made short work of the meal and were at work 
unloading the freight wagon when a rider came casually 
into the camp. 

“Am I too late for grub?” he cried. 

Hugh gave a welcoming shout. “Uncle Bookie!” A 
tall old man slid from his horse and clasped the young 
man in a shameless embrace. Even when he had freed 
Hugh from the bear hug, Bookie stood with his hand on 
his foster nephew’s shoulder while he grinned at Fred and 
Red Wolf. 

“I hoped it wouldn’t snow till I picked up the smoke of 


CHRISTMAS 


i3 

the sheep wagon,” he said. “What happened at the other 
camp?” 

“A slide that ruined two months’ work,” replied Hugh. 
“Anything wrong at Fort Sioux, Uncle Bookie?” 

“There certainly is. A certain fool geologist forgot to 
come home for Christmas.” 

“By Jove!” cried Hugh, “this is Christmas Eve!” 

“Wonderful memory you always did have, Hughie,” 
said Bookie. 

Fred joined in Hugh’s laughter, adding, “HI heat that 
kettle of stew. Look to your saddle, stranger.” 

Hugh nodded to the Indian. “Look to the saddle, Red 
Wolf, will you? Come into the wagon, Uncle Bookie. 
I’ve just made the discovery of my life. Some Christmas 
gift, HI say.” 

The older man followed Hugh and rested himself on 
the edge of the lower bunk with a sigh, probably of 
pleasure, for he was smiling at Hugh as he did so. 

John Haverford Smith, known to all Wyoming as 
Bookie Smith, was very thin and very brown, with a small, 
bald head topping a long whip-cord neck. He had deep 
brown eyes set far apart, eyes that were full of light but 
that told no tales on Bookie. If, as Hugh often thought, 
the old man’s life had been one of mental hunger, his eyes 
did not say so. If life’s lonely, heart-breaking, mirth- 
provoking pageant had left him sterile, his fine brown eyes 
did not say so. They were merely the casements from 
which his lonely and sensitive soul gazed at the world. 
For the rest, his face was clean shaven and austere of line, 
his hands were long and startlingly white, the hands of 
the perpetually gloved rider. He chewed tobacco, always 
swallowing the juice. 

He unbuttoned his mackinaw, showing a black coat 


i4 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

buttoned over a blue flannel shirt, renewed his quid, then 
said: 

“How’d you come to make camp just here, Hughie?” 

“Well, I was so devilishly disappointed yesterday over 
the loss of the specimen that old Red Wolf unfolded a 
story about a stone devil that he thought a white man 
could drive out of a certain mysterious cave, hereabouts. 
He declared he could show it to me, and, by jove, the old 
boy made good. Lord, Uncle Bookie, there’s a triceratops 
down there that will make the mouths water of several 
museums I know.” 

Bookie chewed thoughtfully, then pulled off his macki¬ 
naw and put a spurred foot up on the hearth to dry. 
“Take off that cap, Hughie, and let me have a square look 
at you. Who cut your hair?” 

“Fred took a hand at it the other day.” Hugh grinned 
and tossed his cap into the upper bunk. His close cropped 
head thus displayed was of curiously noble proportions. 

“There you are!” said Bookie. “Your head should 
have made something besides a bone digger of you, 
Hughie! But Lord God, why should an old failure like 
me croak about that!” 

A little glint of irritation showed for a moment in 
Hugh’s eyes, but it was replaced by a glance of sympathy 
as he perceived an unwonted expression of weariness, 
almost of weakness, on Bookie’s thin lips. 

“Fred,” Hugh turned suddenly to the old miner, “I 
don’t believe we’ll begin the job this afternoon, seeing that 
we have company and it’s Christmas Eve. Suppose you 
and Red Wolf try your luck at antelope. We ought to 
have a real dinner tomorrow.” 

Fred poured a cupful of melted snow into the coffee pot 
and smiled. 


i 



CHRISTMAS 


i5 

“Best idea you’ve had in two months, Hughie. Will 
you dish this here mess for Bookie?” 

Hugh nodded and Fred slammed out of the wagon. 

“Thanks, Hughie,” said Bookie. “It isn’t very often 
I get a chance for a real talk with you.” 

Hugh served the old man’s meal with the deftness of 
hand characteristic of him before he asked, “Was there 
something particular on your mind, Uncle Bookie?” 

“I suppose there is,” replied Bookie, “though I didn’t 
fully realize it till I got here. I’m getting old, Hughie, 
and you are all I have, and I miss you.” 

Hugh, perched on the bunk edge while his uncle ate, 
nodded understanding^. “And you are all I have, too, 
Uncle Bookie.” 

“You oughtn’t to eliminate Jessie that way, Hughie,” 
said Bookie. 

Hugh’s clear gray eyes looked unblinkingly into 
Bookie’s. “You and I don’t have to make pretenses about 
Jessie, do we? If I must bluff the rest of the world, I can 
be honest with you, can’t I ?” 

“Jessie is all right. She just isn’t your kind, that’s all. 
I told you before you married her that you’d outgrow her 
before you were twenty-five,” protested Bookie. 

“Well,” Hugh’s low voice was stern, “it’s come as you 
said and I’m paying the bill in loneliness, but I haven’t 
complained except when Jess and her mother go after me 
too hard about my work.” 

“Everybody over thirty is lonely,” said Bookie, “and 
some younger than that. Jessie is lonely—or I miss my 
guess.” 

“Is it Jessie that you wanted to talk to me about ?” asked 
Hugh, skeptically. 

“Only incidentally,” Bookie answered after a long 
pause, during which he finished his meal and Hugh filled 


16 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

and half smoked a pipe. “Only incidentally. I’m getting 
old, Hughie. I live in the past. It’s a sure sign.” 

Hugh packed the dishes into the dish-pan and slung the 
table against the wall. Then he stretched himself on 
the bench thus exposed and nodded toward the lower 
bunk. 

‘‘Ease yourself over there, Uncle Bookie, and get it all 
off your chest.” 

Bookie smiled. “I wish it was as simple as that, 
boy—” He chewed for several minutes. “Eve had an 
interesting life, Hugh, a lot more interesting than most 
folks, chuck full of adventure, and yet, sitting there alone 
in the old book store night after night, do you know what 
I think about? The woman I didn’t marry—the son I 
didn’t have—the good I didn’t do.” 

He paused and Hugh eyed him wistfully. “You might 
be cataloging my own losses, Uncle Bookie!” 

“As a matter of fact, Hughie, you are so wrapped up 
in your work that you don’t look on those things as losses 
but as assets. Come now, isn’t that true? And you are 
looking at me sadly out of pure love and sympathy for 
me. Eh?” 

Hugh laughed. “Right, Uncle Bookie! Lord, I wouldn’t 
give up my work for anything on earth.” 

“Don’t make wild boasts, boy. Life’s just begun for 
you— Don’t fix yourself so that every gol darned holiday 
that comes along, especially Christmas, makes you feel like 
an empty gourd. Especially Christmas.” 

“By jove, Uncle Bookie, don’t tell me an old gun- 
notcher like you is getting sentimental!” 

“Exactly! I’m getting sentimental. Every human 
being has to pay toll sometime in the shape of sentimen¬ 
tality. Most folks are lucky enough to get through it 
while they’re young. But I stalled it off and now I have 


CHRISTMAS 


i7 

to pay. Take this matter of Christmas. Christmas isn’t 
a religious festival. It’s a state of mind. It’s a yearly 
return to the basic principles on which civilization has 
covered even the small amount of ground it’s covered so 
far. Hughie, do you remember the Christmases we used 
to have on the ranch before your mother died?” 

Hugh nodded. 

“Do you remember the last one while your father still 
lived?” 

Hugh shook his head. “No. I was only six. But 
I was ten when mother went.” 

% 

“Tell me some of the things you remember, boy.” 

Hugh, wondering much as to what was passing in his 
foster uncle’s mind, complied readily enough, speaking 
carefully as he turned back into his childhood. 

“I remember the tree, of course, and you and mother 
full of secrets for days beforehand. I recall very clearly 
the feeling of—of—magic!—in the air. I wonder what 
gave me that? Jove, I can get it now if I let my mind 
dwell on it!” 

He closed his eyes and slipped back into a past which 
he had not entered for years. His tall, gray-eyed mother 
—the tree—the lights—the gifts—the candle in the win¬ 
dow—stars, myriads of stars—and, every Christmas, 
himself and his mother walking slowly out beyond the 
corrals to be alone with the star of the east. She had been 
a deeply religious woman, his tall, gray-eyed mother, and 
though Hugh had drifted far from her teachings, he never 
was to forget them. So now he heard her again repeating 
to the little boy the old, old story—felt again the nearness 
to a great glory and a great tragedy—sensed his mother’s 
passionate love for him and his for her—sensed her over¬ 
whelming desire for him to achieve something as stupen¬ 
dous as that other mother had desired for that other and 


18 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

deeply tragic child—and he perceived again in the boy of 
seven that strange regret which had grown in him with 
the years, a regret based on the understanding that life had 
expended endless glories which he could never know, that 
those glories were almost within hand touch, if one only 
could believe enough—if only- 

Hugh sighed. “I can’t put much of it into words, 
Uncle Bookie. Most of it lay between mother and me.” 

“You can’t recall that last Christmas Eve and your 
mother and what she said?” 

“O that!” Hugh stirred restlessly. “She died the 
next day. Don’t make me go into that. I had to shut it 
out of my mind years ago. It broke my heart.” 

“I know. But for once, Hughie—for me. What did 
she say?” 

Hugh laid his pipe down, and sat up slowly. His 
beautiful mouth twisted with old pain. “She said, 
‘Hughie, be big enough to make up for your father’s 
failure, and mine and Uncle Bookie’s.’ ” He wiped the 
moisture from his lips. “Why are you doing this to me, 
Uncle Bookie?” 

There was satisfaction mingled with sympathy in the 
old man’s voice. “I had to see whether you’d gone en¬ 
tirely cold, Hughie. But you haven’t, thank God!” 

Hugh’s lips stiffened. “I thought you understood me 
better than this, Uncle Bookie.” 

“I understand you better than any one else does, 
Hughie, and I’m convinced that fossils aren’t going to 
satisfy you as you grow into middle age. You ought 
to mix more with folks and read more books.” 

Hugh’s long chin set till his jaw showed white beneath 
his ears. It was an old sore and even Bookie could not 
touch it with impunity. The older man realized this and 
his voice was very gentle as he went on. 



CHRISTMAS 


i9 

“Do you think fossil hunting is big enough to make up 
for your father’s failure and mine? I won’t admit that 
your mother failed. She was a saint.” 

“I think it would be,” replied Hugh, stoutly. “But I 
don’t admit that you’re a failure.” 

“T am a failure. I had a good brain and I never used 
more than a quarter of it. I was satisfied to play smarty 
out here with a gun when I might have been doing my 
share toward making Wyoming as big as her plains.” 

“I thought the book store was the dream of your life!” 
exclaimed Hugh. 

“It was, but I didn’t do the things with it I planned 
to do.” 

“Why not?” Hugh’s voice was full of surprise. 

“I had missed the thing that makes a man fight to live 
up to his dreams—the real love of a real woman.” 

“I’m living up to my dreams without that,” said Hugh, 
shortly. 

“Maybe your dreams don’t amount to much,” returned 
the old man. 

Hugh flushed, but said nothing. 

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Hughie, God knows!” 
cried Bookie, sitting erect suddenly. “You are the son 
I never had and I yearn over you as you can’t understand. 
You are going through life blind to all the enormous pos¬ 
sibilities in you, and it seems as if it would kill me, sitting 
alone there in The Lariat.” 

Hugh reached over to put a finely cut, strong hand on 
Bookie’s knee. “Is The Lariat only a book shop to you, 
after all, Uncle Bookie? We all thought it was a lot 
more.” 

“God!” groaned the old man. 

Hugh let his hand remain where he had laid it while he 
said, sadly, “I’m sorry I’m a disappointment to you, Uncle 


20 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 


Bookie. I wish I could make you see the enormous possi¬ 
bilities of my profession. ,, 

‘Tm not doubting those possibilities for a moment. But 
that isn’t saying it brings out your best powers, is it?” 

For a moment there was no sound save the crackling 
of the cedar knots in the little stove. Then Hugh said 
slowly: 

“Uncle Bookie, since I married Jessie, you and she and 
her mother have been pressing me to go into some work 
that will bring out my best powers! And I’ve been feeling 
resentful, because I believe that all there is in me is going 
into my profession. I simply don’t understand on what 
you base all this day dreaming. What started it, any¬ 
how?” 

“You mean,” Bookie gazed at his foster child wonder- 
ingly, “that you don’t realize that you are different from 
the run of men?” 

“Different only in that the people who should know me 
best are perpetually dissatisfied with me, :md that I feel 
badgered all the time I’m at home. I don’t think the run 
of men live under those conditions. I don’t think I’m 
naturally irritable.” He smiled wistfully at his uncle. 

“No, you are not naturally so. Until lately you were 
the best controlled youngster I ever knew.” Bookie pulled 
at his pipe thoughtfully. “It never occurred to me that 
you didn’t recognize your own power. Let me think a 
moment.” He stared at the rippling canvas over his head. 
“Your father was a remarkable man. If he hadn’t had 
such rotten bad health he’d have been heard from in this 
state. He was the best engineer I ever knew and a fine 
executive. I mean that he could lay out a big irrigation 
scheme and get it built better and quicker than any engi¬ 
neer in the northwest. He had a natural instinct for 
handling men and a fine scientific mind. You don’t often 


CHRISTMAS 


21 


see the two together. Of course, you know all this, but 
evidently you haven’t connected it with the ability you 
show in your own work.” 

Hugh shook his head and Bookie went on. 

“Your father had a big brain, but it was your mother 
who had the personality. I don’t suppose any one in the 
world has ever really defined charm. She had it to a 
remarkable degree. Yet I can’t describe it to you! Love¬ 
liness of character? Lots of people have it and nobody 
cares about them. Cleverness ? She was not clever. She 
was too big to be that. Intellectual? Yes, she was intel¬ 
lectual, but a person can be intellectual and repellent at the 
same time. She— O I can’t describe it! But people liked 
to be with her. They liked to do what she wanted them 
to. And they liked to know what she thought about 
things. Her greatest gift was just that. Making people 
see things as she saw them.” 

“I remember that,” said Hugh, quickly. “She handled 
me as no one else could.” 

“Yes,” replied Bookie. “After she died and I took you 
over, of course I was interested in seeing what you’d 
inherited from each of them. Your interest in geology 
was easily accounted for. And it looked during your 
teens, as if you’d inherited your mother’s character. I 
remember when you were about fourteen, I sent you up 
in the wild horse country with half-a-dozen riders to 
bring in some mares that were running near Big Fang. 
Recall it?” 

“Jove, yes! We roped that little mare Sissy you bred 
to Black Maverick. She was a beauty.” 

Bookie grunted. “I thought that was about what you’d 
remember! What has remained in my mind is this. That 
gang of riders I grubstaked planned to leave the pick of 
the horses they ran down, up in that old Indian corral 


22 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

at the foot of Big Fang, for themselves. So, to deceive 
you, they lamed your horse and left you in camp with the 
cook.” 

“O I do remember now!” exclaimed Hugh. “I got the 
cook to tell me who’d kicked my horse, and when the men 
came in that night I jumped Red Pete and tried my best 
to lick him. He sure gave me a trouncing!” 

“How’d you get the cook to tell you?” asked Bookie, 
watching Hugh intently. 

“O I don’t recall that! He just told,” replied Hugh 
vaguely. “I haven’t forgiven Red Pete yet for kicking 
my horse.” 

“Well, what happened after he’d licked you?” 

“I think I told them what I thought of guys that would 
do what they’d done to my pony. I remember standing by 
the fire with a bloody nose and telling them what a rotten 
outfit they were, and what that little old horse meant to me 
and a lot of other things. Anyhow, they all got the point, 
for they made Red Pete give me his best mount.” 

“Is that all?” demanded Bookie. 

“That’s all that I remember just now.” 

“Old Snorty Williams was the cook. He told me that 
you made those hard-faced horse thieves break up like 
May ice in the Roaring Chief. And that they came to 
you for orders during the rest of the hunt. Remember ?” 

Hugh smoked thoughtfully. “I don’t know as they 
came to me for orders because of myself. I was your 
representative.” 

Again Bookie grunted. “But they didn’t do so until 
after the fight with Red Pete and after you’d made them 
see the thing as you saw it.” 

“Perhaps,” agreed Hugh. “I certainly would like to 
meet up with Red Pete again.” 

“I was much impressed by that incident,” Bookie went 


CHRISTMAS 23 

on, “and I could cite a dozen more of the same kind that 
occurred before you went to college. You were all father 
in your craze for fossil hunting, but you had so much of 
your mother’s charm that—that—Hughie, sometimes I 
couldn’t bear to be with you. But after you got into col¬ 
lege, the scientific side of you began to dominate. When 
you began to go with Jessie, I used to talk to her about it. 
I didn’t like to see you shut yourself off from the other 
students and give all your time to fossils. So it’s really 
my fault, I suppose, that Jessie has taken the attitude 
toward you that she has, Hughie. I can’t bear to see you 
getting more and more unsociable and irritable like your 
father and losing that charm and power over others that 
was your mother’s.” 

“Am I getting to be so?” asked Hugh. Then, without 
waiting for a reply, he went on, “Yoif’ve no idea how 
Jessie and her mother nag me, Uncle Bookie.” 

“And you’ve no idea how you growl at them,” replied 
his uncle. “Somehow we’re all gone wrong.” 

“I’ll try to behave myself,” said Hugh, contritely. “I 
guess I have let my resentment show too much. But, 
Uncle Bookie, if I’m such a wonder at influencing people, 
why haven’t I been able to show you and Jessie and her 
mother how big paleontology is?” 

“Because,” returned Bookie quickly, “fine as it is, it’s 
not as fine as your possibilities, and because you’ve never 
really tried to convert us. Lord! Lord! I’ve come to 
the conclusion that modesty and a single interest are the 
worst combination a man can have. Besides obstinacy,” 
he added, glancing at the set of Hugh’s long jaw. 

Hugh smiled, then added soberly, “I do want to please 
you, Uncle Bookie. If I become very great in my work, 
won’t that satisfy you?” 


24 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“No,” replied Bookie, “because it will demand only a 
part of your powers.” 

Hugh stared at the older man in a puzzled, half pleading 
sort of way, then, with an obviously determined manner, 
he changed the subject. 

“Uncle Bookie, down in the cave below us, this morn¬ 
ing, I found a skeleton wearing a suit of clothes. In the 
pocket of the overcoat was an envelope addressed to 
Jimmie Duncan.” 

Bookie slowly reached into his hip pocket, took a care¬ 
ful bite of tobacco and after reinserting the remainder of 
the plug turned on his back again. 

“I left Jimmie down there twenty-three years ago this 
Christmas.” 

“Did you put a notch on your gun, Uncle Bookie?” 

“You can bet I did. A deep one!” 

“Why, Uncle Bookie?” 

“Because he was a skunk.” 

“Will you tell me about it?” 

‘Til try. I loved your mother from the time she came 
out here with your poor one-lunged dad. He knew it, 
and before he died he tried to get her to promise she’d 
marry me. But she didn’t love anybody but him and 
never did, and though she stayed on for five years after 
his death as my housekeeper, she never would be any more 
to me than a pal—God bless her, Hughie! She was a 
beautiful soul—beautiful! Jimmie Duncan was a cattle 
runner in those days, and he and his gang used the river 
section of this tract for running their herds. In those 
times, he wasn’t considered so disrespectable and once in 
a while he took a meal up at my ranch. He went plumb, 
raving crazy over your mother. I warned him off. She 
sure did hate him, but he got to coming back when I’d be 
in Fort Sioux. On Christmas Eve, twenty-three years 


CHRISTMAS 


25 

ago, I came back to find her standing him off with a gun.” 

Bookie paused and Hugh observed that the old man’s 
fingers were trembling. 

‘Tm not going into details. They still upset me. But 
he got away from me and I tracked him here, to this very 
spot. We took several pot shots at each other. Then, 
during the night, a half-breed helped him down into that 
cave, and afterward double-crossed him and lowered me 
down. I didn’t trouble to bury the skunk. Naturally 
I never told anything about it, for your mother’s sake. 
Curiously enough, the half-breed was killed the next day. 
They said he slipped over the canyon. I took over the 
Old Sioux Tract and tried to give it to your mother. 
When she wouldn’t have it, I swore no one should ever 
use it if she wouldn’t. And so far I’ve kept my word. 
You’ve never found a dinosaur on it before, have you, 
Hughie?” 

“No, but I have an idea it may prove to be a great fossil 
field. You aren’t going to object to my prospecting it, ai-e 
you, Uncle Bookie?” 

The old man answered with unexpected obstinacy. “I 
don’t aim to break my word during my lifetime, Hughie.” 

“But you aren’t going to refuse to let me get that tri- 
ceratops out!” cried Hugh, in sudden alarm. 

“Yes, I think I shall. It can’t mean as much pleasure 
to you as it does pain to me. You let Jimmie Duncan’s 
grave alone.” 

“O but here, Uncle Bookie! I’ll take that skunk’s bones 
and clothes and burn them. I wish I could add insult and 
ignominy to them, too.” Hugh paused as the significance 
of that generation-old killing swept over him. Then he 
said, “After all, he didn’t actually harm mother, and I 
think she’d be glad to have me bring something memorable 
out of that cave.” He paused once more as a picture of 


26 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 


his mother’s Christmas face beneath the winter stars rose 
before his eyes. “And on Christmas Eve, too! What a 
hell’s spawn he was. Where was I, Uncle Bookie?” 

“In bed and asleep,” replied the old man, watching his 
foster nephew, intently. 

“I was only seven,” said Hugh, apologetically. “I shall 
kick his bones into the river, tomorrow,” a sudden passion 
showing in his voice that brought an answering gleam 
into Bookie’s brown eyes. Again Hugh’s jaw gleamed 
white beneath the ears. “Let me clean the cave up, Uncle 
Bookie. She’d want me to.” 

“I can’t, Hughie. I thought maybe I could, but it 
won’t work. She wouldn’t take the Tract from me. It 
was the only cruel thing she ever did. She shan’t take 
it from you, by God!” 

Hugh poked the fire. “Uncle Bookie,” he said, “I’m 
sorry to go against you, but as a paleontologist I’ve got 
no right to leave that dinosaur down there to chance. I’ll 
get it out and then I’ll-go down into Lost Basin Country.” 

“Well, let’s not debate the matter on Christmas Eve, 
Hughie,” the old man sighed. “I’m going back home 
tomorrow and of course you can do what you please.” 

“Yes, let’s leave it that way,” agreed Hugh, eagerly. 

“Your work must come first, eh?” asked Bookie, slowly, 
“before any human weakness or relationship?” 

Hugh answered with sudden vehemence. “Yes, by jove, 
and it always shall!” 

Then he opened the door and went out into the bitter 
dusk. When he returned his Uncle Bookie had gone to 
bed. 

Red Wolf brought in an antelope that night. He and 
Fred dressed it before they climbed into the upper bunk 
and all night long a coyote pack fought and snarled over 
the hide and offal which the two hunters deposited far 


CHRISTMAS 


2 7 

up the draw. Hugh slept restlessly and woke the next 
morning full of contrition over the turn his conversation 
with Bookie had taken. 

Bookie, however, was very cheerful. He followed the 
men about the camp, watching their preparations for 
the next day’s work, making no comments whatever. At 
noon, over the venison dinner, he talked with Red Wolf 
about old trapping days. 

“You Sioux haven’t the nerve you used to have,” gibed 
the old man. “In the old days we could rely on you for 
keeping us supplied with bear skins. Now almost all the 
bear skins are brought in by the dudes up on my ranch.” 

Red Wolf grinned. “Injuns afraid. That’s right! 
You remember when Hugh little boy, how he save Red 
Wolf’s life from brown bear?” 

Bookie laughed. 

“What’s the story?” asked Fred. 

“You tell ’em, Bookie,” said the old Sioux. 

“Not much of a story,” Bookie smiled reminiscently. 
“Hughie was about ten and always boasting about the big 
game he’d get if I’d only let him use my .44 rifle. He was 
especially loud-mouthed about his bear hunting.” 

“O I remember that!” exclaimed Hugh. “It was when 
Red Wolf was trapping up on the Reserve back of the 
ranch. I followed him on one of his trips when he made 
the round of his traps. Of course, I lost him after the 
first mile or two. But in a thick growth of cedar I saw a 
brown bear as big as an elephant. 

“I had been toting the forbidden .44. But it was very 
heavy for a ten-year-old and I’d hidden it about a quarter 
of a mile back. I was shaking like a leaf, but I gathered 
my courage and ran for the gun. When I got back, there 
was the bear, still sitting on his haunches, talking and 
growling to himself. So I began to crawl up on him. 


28 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

It took me a long, long time to encourage myself to get 
within easy shot of him. He sure was an ugly brute. His 
whole attention was concentrated on something I couldn’t 
see through the underbrush, until I was within about a 
hundred feet of him. Then I saw that it was Red Wolf! 
Yes, sir, Red Wolf, apparently hypnotized by horror, for 
he was crouched with his back against a tree, not moving 
a muscle. 

“I let out a yell and began shooting the .44. I put six 
shots into the bear before he dropped. Then I crawled up 
to him. Red Wolf sat grinning at me. 

“ ‘Well, I saved your life,’ I howled. 

“Red Wolf nodded and I stood up and, almost bursting 
with pride, looked at my bear. Fred, his hind leg was in 
a trap! Red Wolf had just been sitting there looking him 
over before shooting him. And I had ruined a fine pelt.” 

Fred chuckled, then said : “You should never have told 
on the kid, Red Wolf.” 

“He didn’t,” said Bookie. “Hugh told on himself. 
Say, Red Wolf, have you still got that pelt?” 

“Yes. Couldn’t sell ’em.” 

“I’ll trade you something for it. What do you say? Is 
there any hair left on it?” 

“Some,” replied the Sioux. “No will swap. Keep ’em 
on bed, think ’bout little boy Hughie.” 

“Got any decent bead work then?” asked Bookie. “I 
can always live in hopes, I suppose, that I’ll find some of 
the fine old work.” 

“Maybe,” Red Wolf shook his head. “You got any 
books heap fine pictures in ’em?” 

“You can see when you come in from this job. How 
long do you think it will take you, Hughie?” 

“Until March, I guess.” 

The old man nodded, knocked the ashes from his pipe 


CHRISTMAS 


29 

and pulled on his mackinaw. “I must get started. Any 
message for Jessie?” 

“Just that I’m well. Fred will be in once in a while 
for supplies. I’ll send the teams down in a day or so, to 
remain until I’m ready to come out. I’m running out of 
horse feed.” 

“How much money will you make out of that bird, 
Hughie?” asked Bookie, unexpectedly. 

“If I break even I’ll be lucky,” replied Hugh, cheerfully. 
“I won’t even make wages like Red Wolf and Fred!” 

Bookie grunted and said good-by. 

On the day after Christmas, in spite of a driving snow, 
Hugh began work on the exhuming of the triceratops. 
He insisted upon being lowered first to receive the impedi¬ 
menta required in the delicate and highly technical business 
of uncovering the Stone Devil. 

It was bitter cold and dusky within the cave. Hugh’s 
first act was to rip out some of the ancient cedar posts 
with which a portion of the walls were shored and to start 
a fire in the crude stone fireplace which still leaned crazily 
against a crevice to the left of the doorway. This done, 
he stood in the fire glow, arms folded, staring at the skele¬ 
ton in the overcoat. Then a sudden fury swept over him 
and with a swift movement of his foot he thrust the 
ghastly remains of Jimmie Duncan into the roaring 
flames. An hour later he shouted up to his helpers to 
lower the first box. 

Red Wolf had declined to come down, and Hugh, 
knowing the old man’s reasons, did not urge him, much 
as he needed the help of a third man. 

The cave was very dry and there had been little weather¬ 
ing of the dinosaur. Nevertheless, it took all of Hugh’s 
knowledge and skill of hand, combined with Fred’s not 
to be despised facility in the handling of the pick and 


30 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

shovel, to work the triceratops out of his long resting 
place. Toward the last, when it would have seemed impos¬ 
sible to the lay eye to save a crumbling rib or the strange 
armor of the neck, the pick was abandoned and the two 
men, hands stiffened with the cold, worked with awl and 
brush, until the whole terrible length of the monster had 
been perfectly exhumed. Then each fossil bone must be 
saturated with mucilage and wrapped with burlap strips, 
dipped in plaster of Paris, before being packed carefully 
into boxes and crates. 

Hugh worked as he always did over a specimen, in a 
frenzy of enthusiasm. He never mentioned the biting 
cold, the ghastly trip night and morning dangling from 
the twisting rope over the far black depths of the river. 
Indeed, he did not think of these things. But he did note 
with never-ending pleasure the drama of the picture—the 
fire light leaping on the red walls, the awful heaps of dead 
men’s bones, mingled with the tiny bones of children, the 
ancient pottery—here was the record of a glory that he 
could rescue from the jealous past. The present, with its 
discomforts, its inhibitions, didn’t exist for him. 


CHAPTER II 


FORT SIOUX 

W HEN, after many weeks, the awful god of the cave 
had been rendered harmless, the two men packed 
up the best of the ancient weapons and pottery and sent 
these up the wall to the camp. The cases containing the 
triceratops were too heavy to handle thus and were des¬ 
tined to remain in the cave until spring, when the river 
would be hospitable to the idea of transporting them. 
They drew on Red Wolf’s help, however, in working out 
a crude trail down to the river from the cave opening. 
This took many days of hard toil. 

It was late March when the camp was broken and the 
start was made for Fort Sioux, the freight wagon loaded 
with the boxes of weapons and pottery. 

The snows were disappearing from the plains, though 
they were still heavy along the canyon edge. Spring was 
in the air, if not under foot, on the last day of the trip 
and Hugh found himself unexpectedly eager to reach the 
warmth and comfort of Fort Sioux, eager for the physical 
comfort of home, but dreading in a wordless way the 
reaction of Jessie to his wonderful three months’ work. 
However, it would be highly appreciated in New York 
if it was not in Fort Sioux, thought Hugh, his mouth 
twisting slightly as he thought of Jessie’s inevitable com¬ 
ment : 

“Gee whiz! It’s like being married to the keeper of 
a cemetery!” 

It was mid-morning and he wanted to make Fort Sioux 

31 


32 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

that night. Ten miles of sandy road. He settled to this 
last lap of the journey with dogged determination. All 
day long the road appeared and disappeared over the roll¬ 
ing yellow plains like quicksilver. Purple peaks appeared 
at intervals, towered for a time against the horizon, then 
dropped away. Now and again lone eagles wandered 
through the violet sky. 

They stopped for a very short noon rest at the govern¬ 
ment wells, then urged the tired horses on. A long sun¬ 
drenched afternoon, and then toward sundown a startling 
glimpse again of the canyon in which floated the opales¬ 
cent clouds of spring. The road seemed to drop into the 
canyon with utter finality. But Hugh spurred Fossil to 
the brink without hesitation. This was the old home trail, 
corkscrewing down and down into the tremendous gash. 
He waited for the teams to come up to him, eyeing as he 
did so the black line of the river on the far level floor 
beneath, and beyond the river, backed solidly against the 
turreted wall of the canyon, the little town of red-roofed 
houses, with toy trains on toy tracks weaving in and out 
among the buildings. 

It was Fort Sioux and home. Home! Hugh grunted 
as he uttered the word. Home—Jessie—his mother-in- 
law. But, at any rate, there was Uncle Bookie. The 
lead team came up and Hugh took the dropping trail. 

Port Sioux! A frontier town, treeless, wind-swept, 
lonely as the sky. A single, long, sandy street bordered 
by dreary frame buildings. The dark river rushing 
harshly behind the street. 

The inhabitants, of course, boasted much of the little 
town,—particularly the male inhabitants. Part of this 
was sincere. They really considered Fort Sioux the center 
of the universe and an admirable center, too. But part of 
their boasting was a protective armor donned to offset the 


FORT SIOUX 33 

attacks of the Woman’s Club, which, led by Hugh’s 
mother-in-law, Mrs. Pink Morgan, had been bent on clean¬ 
ing Fort Sioux, parking it, paving it, lighting it and other¬ 
wise making it a comfortable place in which to live. It 
takes a solid front of complacency to withstand the attacks 
of a woman s club, but the men of Fort Sioux were solid 
to the core. 

Hugh and his Uncle Bookie, however, could not be 
accounted as a part of these shock troops, although they 
were citizens of the little town. Hugh saw Fort Sioux 
only as a shipping point for dinosaurs, and Bookie saw 
its true beauty. To Bookie, the lonely town included in its 
environs not only the ugly streets and the hideous dwell¬ 
ings but the canyon walls that hemmed it in and the wide 
plains above and the sweeping freedom of the sky. 

Bookie knew that, after all, no town, however lovely, 
could bear comparison with the architecture of that canyon 
wall. He knew that no people, however fine, could seem 
as fine as the free ardor of that rushing river. Yet from 
the window of his book store, Bookie saw the life of the 
little town as a panorama of exceeding brilliancy and 
beauty. 

Space, color, wide winds and mellow sun, dust of bel¬ 
lowing herds, shouting cowmen, the smell of leather and 
horse sweat, the clamor of the locomotive shops, the shriek 
of transcontinental trains, the rush of Indian ponies urged 
by unsmiling braves, tourists Fording up to Bookie’s Dude 
Ranch, fossil hunters, packing prehistoric burdens, and 
always the unremitting uproar of the river. 

Bookie was standing at his window, the window of the 
Lariat Book Shop, when Hugh led his precious train 
across the bridge and up the street to the railroad corral. 
Hugh waved to him in passing. The old man’s face, not 
Jessie’s, would give him his true home-coming. After all, 


34 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

a man must find that look of home somewhere, or be no 
better than a beast with only a lair, Hugh thought as he 
turned the freight over to Fred’s careful hands and trotted 
back to The Lariat. 

It was dusk and Bookie had lighted the lamp. He came 
forward as the young man entered. 

“Well, Hughie, welcome back!” he exclaimed. 

Hugh grasped the old man’s hands. “Uncle Bookie,” 
he cried, “I’ve had a wonderful trip!” 

“You cleaned out the cave, Hughie?” 

“Yes, Uncle Bookie! You don’t really mind, do you?” 

Bookie looked into Hugh’s eager face with a wistful 
earnestness, shrugged his shoulders slightly and said 
finally, “Sit down and let me look at you. There is plenty 
of time before supper.” 

Hugh smiled, perched on the counter and proceeded to 
light his pipe. Then he returned the old man’s gaze, the 
little smile of affection continuing to hover around his fine 
mouth. There was no face in the world that held quite 
the place in Hugh’s heart that did Bookie’s. 

“How’s business here, Uncle Bookie?” Hugh asked 
after a moment. 

“I’ve sold three or four books this winter,” replied 
Bookie, with a little air of defiance. 

“I dare you to name ’em,” grinned Hugh. 

“O I sold ’em all right enough,” insisted Bookie, “only 
I get careless in my sales records, sometimes.” 

A ruddy man of sixty strolled in at the open door in 
time to hear this statement. 

“What you need is a wife, Bookie,” he snarled. He 
spat into the stove. “Some one to keep your accounts. 
Some one to make you shave every week whether you 
need it or not. Some one to keep tabs on your tobacco 


FORT SIOUX 


35 

money, some one to hide your old boots on you, some 
one-” 

Bookie interrupted. “Must have been trouble at the 
Indian Massacre, Pink. Aren’t you going to say hello to 
your son-in-law?” 

“Hello, Hughie! Glad you’re back. You can fight 
your own battles now.” 

“The trouble couldn’t have been about me, Pink!” Hugh 
shrugged derisively. 

“Trouble!” snorted the landlord of the Indian Massacre 
Hotel. “It wasn’t what you’d call trouble. It was the 
spring inventory of you and me. Kind of a round-up and 
a thorough overhauling of the stock, including dehorning, 
delousing, vaccination and a forced sale.” 

“How did it end?” asked Bookie, not without a slightly 
anxious glance at Hugh. 

“They sent me over to bring you two to supper. It all 
started when they see Hughie come along the street with 
another one of those damned loads of dead junk. The 
missis is all worked into a lather again.” 

“What did Jessie say?” asked Hugh. 

“Mighty little, as far as that goes,” replied Jessie’s 
father. “I don’t understand Jessie. Never did. Some¬ 
times I think she’s entirely under her mother’s thumb. 
Sometimes seems like she never was under anybody’s 
thumb. One thing is certain. She and her mother agree 
that Hughie and I ain’t any good.” 

“Do they clump you and Hughie together, as carelessly 
as that?” asked Bookie, sardonically. 

“Well, I don’t see why not,” returned Pink, belliger¬ 
ently. “I don’t see that Plughie is making much more of 
a fist of things than me. For all the boasting you used to 
do about him.” 



36 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“This is what I call a warm welcome home/’ Hugh’s 
smile was sadder than it was resentful. 

“O I ain’t criticizing you!” exclaimed Pink, quickly. 
“I’m just showing a fellow feeling for you. Which I call 
being broad-minded.” 

“Broad-minded?” queried Hugh. 

“Sure. You ain’t exactly making a success of it with 
Jessie, are you, Hughie?” 

“If Jessie would try to understand my point of view, 
things would go better,” replied his son-in-law. 

“Listen, Hughie, don’t you look down on Jessie,” said 
Pink. “Don’t you think of yourself as brainier than she 
is. Because I’m telling you, you’re wrong. She gets brain 
from both sides of the house.” 

Bookie gave a sudden shout of laughter. “Poor Jessie!” 
he exclaimed. 

He dropped a chunk of soft coal in at the top of the 
heater, put the lid on carefully, then looking from Hugh 
to Pink Morgan he said in a tone of indescribable 
derision: 

“Marriage!” 

“I’d rather be an Is than a Never Has Been,” returned 
Pink. “At least Hugh and I had the nerve to undertake 
what you’ve always run from.” 

“Come on.” Hugh slipped from the counter. “Let’s 
go to supper and be done with it.” 

Pink, with a groan, followed the two tall figures out of 
the store. The Indian Massacre, a ramshackle two-story 
frame building, was directly across the sandy street. The 
three stamped over the porch and in at the open door. 
The dining room, containing a single long table, was tc 
the left of the office. Mrs. Morgan was sitting behind the 
coffee pot, but Hugh led his cohort firmly into the room 

“Good evening, Mrs. Morgan,” he said. 


FORT SIOUX 


37 

“Good evening, Hughie. Jessie and I had given you 

up. 

“I was making up for lost time with Uncle Bookie,” 
returned Hugh, slipping into the seat farthest from his 
mother-in-law and helping himself to cold beef and fried 
potatoes. Mrs. Morgan looked him over with a mingling 
of irritation and affection in her eyes—the irritation 
finally dominating. She was slender, with a small face 
that was pretty, despite the thin firmness of her lips. Her 
hair was light brown and her eyes were light brown and 
her skin was lightly tanned as the skin of even the most 
careful Fort Sioux woman had to be. She had an eager, 
darting way of looking about her. There were fine, 
nervous lines about her thin lips, and her chin came to a 
sharp little point. 

“Jessie hasn’t seen you yet, has she?” asked Mrs. 
Morgan. 

“I’ve only been home an hour,” protested Hugh. 

Bookie chuckled. “Huh! First apology. You’re gone 
up, Hughie. I’ve noticed that as long as you refuse to 
apologize to Mrs. Pink she can’t get a hand hold. But 
you’ve made an awful break, boy!” 

“Right! She’ll have you hog-tied in ten minutes, 
Hughie,” grunted Pink. 

Mrs. Morgan turned on her husband abruptly. “There 
you go as usual! No sense of the fitness of things. Poor 
Jessie!” 

“Poor Jessie, why?” asked Jessie, suddenly, from the 
door. 

She was what one likes the western type of woman to 
be. Tall and strong, with fine shoulders and slim thighs. 
Strength in the splendid neck and strength rather than 
beauty in the cleanly chiseled face. Perhaps in her per¬ 
fect strength there was beauty. Who can say? At least 


38 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

her eyes were beautiful—eyes, blue, violet, gray, black; 
eyes with shadows in the corners, with humor in the lift¬ 
ing lids, with courage and daring in the direct and heart¬ 
searching force of her listening gaze. Her hair was 
lovely, too, blond masses of it wrapped about her head. 
Yet it was the strength of Jessie that remained with you 
rather than her points of beauty. 

Hugh went over to the door and kissed her cheek. 
“How are you, Jessie?” he asked. 

“Very well, Hughie,” she replied casually. “Why were 
you saying, ‘Poor Jessie,’ Mother?” 

“She’s sorry you can’t chew and swaller, same as old 
Bookie does,” grunted Pink. 

“There you go again, Pink Morgan!” cried his wife. 
“No sense of refinement nor fitness!” 

“Refinement!” ejaculated Pink. “No! I ain’t got a 
refined hair in my head, and I’m proud of it. It’s bad 
enough to be running the Indian Massacre. On the day 
some one accuses me of being refined too, I’ll get me a job 
on the old ranch, roping steers.” 

Mrs. Morgan tossed her head. “What I’m sorry for 
Jessie for, is that she’s got a husband without any ambi¬ 
tion. Hugh is the smartest young man in Fort Sioux 
country and the nicest and best liked. And he’s wasting 
his life being coroner on a lot of beasts that died the Lord 
knows when.” 

“Mrs. Morgan, I wish you wouldn’t go into that again,” 
exclaimed Hugh. “I tell you frankly that I’m sick of 
your nagging at me.” 

His mother-in-law, her cheeks flaming, leaned over the 
coffee pot. “There’s a chance right now for you to break 
into the Democratic party that will never come again. I 
want you to go to the legislature. I can have all the 


FORT SIOUX 


39 

women’s clubs of Wyoming back of you. I’m going to be 
next president of the state federation, see if I’m not!” 

Pink groaned, took a huge bite of pie and winked at 
Bookie. Jessie leaned indolently against the doorpost, her 
eyes on Hugh. 

Bookie smiled grimly. “Hughie,” he said, “you might 
as well give in. The women in this state run the schools, 
run the politics and have got all the married men roped and 
hobbled. But I warn you now, Pink, that the day your 
wife becomes the governor of Wyoming, I’m going to 
move to Boston.” 

“She won’t run for governor,” declared Pink. 

“What’s to prevent her?” Bookie glanced derisively 
at Mrs. Morgan, who was darting quick glances from 
himself to her husband and to Hugh. 

“In the first place, she’d have to have some men back 
of her, and she don’t know how to handle men. In the 
second place, I’d shoot her and myself before I’d be 
the husband of a woman in office.” 

“It’s a pity you quit riding herd, Pink. You were a 
man then,” said Bookie. 

Pink snorted indignantly. “You don’t call a fellow 
that herds books for a living a regular man, do you?” 

Hugh and Bookie burst into laughter. Jessie smiled 
slowly, her eyes still on Hugh. 

“Well!” ejaculated Mrs. Pink, “if you men have 
finished insulting me, I’ll go on to say that I think Jessie 
is justified in taking any step—any, if Hugh keeps on 
refusing to do any of the things she wants him to do.” 

Hugh jumped to his feet. “Jessie, once and for all, 
I demand of you that you keep your mother out of our 
affairs.” 

“Well,” returned Jessie slowly, “it’s good some one 
takes an interest in our affairs. It’s sure that you don’t.” 


4 o THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“I take an interest in my work. It was my work when 
you married me. A wife marries a man’s work as well as 
she marries him. You’ve known me all my life. I ve 
never had any interest in any line of work but paleon¬ 
tology. I never will have. Unless you can be contented 
with my profession, you haven’t a chance in the world to 
be contented with me. My work is me.” 

“You don’t need to be so frightfully irritable about it, 
do you?” asked Jessie. 

Hugh paused, obviously gathering himself together 
with an effort. The others watched him with concentrated 
interest. His long jaw was set. He took a turn up and 
down the dining room and then said, sadly: 

“You all heckle me so! Jessie, if you won’t understand, 
at least you might have faith in my knowing what I’m 
doing. I thought that was part of being a wife. To have 
faith in a man.” 

Jessie’s face softened a little. She shook her head rue¬ 
fully. “The same old story!” she said. “Hughie always 
talking us out of our critical attitude without in the least 
convincing us that we are wrong and he’s right.” 

“I’m not going to let him soft-soap me, this time!” 
declared his mother-in-law. 

Hugh’s expression was half indignant, half bewildered. 
“I certainly wouldn’t take the trouble to soft-soap you!” 
he retorted. 

“I’ve a question to ask that I hope won’t offend any¬ 
body,” said Bookie. “I’ve often wondered why Jessie, 
since she hasn’t any family, doesn’t do something with 
her time besides ride horses and read novels?” 

“What would you expect me to do, Uncle Bookie?” 
asked Jessie, lazily. 

“Me? O I’m too old to have any expectations about 
human nature,” replied the old man. “I just wondered 


FORT SIOUX 


4i 

if real work on your part might not give Hugh a different 
impression of your criticisms.” 

Jessie stared at Bookie. Then she turned to Hugh. 
“Is that so, Hughie?” she asked. 

“I don’t know,” he replied indifferently. And he picked 
up his hat and went out. 

Fred gave him his breakfast the next morning and 
shortly after eight o’clock Hugh strolled thoughtfully into 
the book store. 

Fort Sioux, of course, was no place for a book store. 
Everybody knows that a small town does not support a 
book store comfortably even in the east, and that the hope¬ 
lessness of a book store in a small town increases as we 
move westward. Sometimes even a westerner will admit 
that frontier states are not book-absorbing states. 

Bookie Smith had always had one consuming ambition. 
He had wanted to keep a book store in Boston. His 
mother had been a New England woman who, after thirty 
years on the plains, wept when she saw a post-card of 
Boston Common; which might account for a part of 
Bookie’s obsession. But whatever the impelling motive, 
at fifty, Bookie leased his outfit to an eastern hotel man 
for a dude ranch and bought Pink Morgan’s poolroom in 
Fort Sioux. Pink became landlord of the Indian Massacre 
Hotel. 

There was a large window at either end of the pool- 
room. The roof was ceiled with metal, stamped in a 
design of cupids. Bookie made tall stack bookcases with 
which to line the walls. There were miles of shelves in 
the store. When he brought down from the ranch his 
thousand volumes of what not, the shelves swallowed 
them at a mouthful. 

He placed a huge, airtight heater in the rear of the 
room with a very large brass cuspidor in front of it. The 


42 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

cuspidor was distinctly an aesthetic touch, for the cowman 
uses the stove when he uses anything. Near the front 
door he placed a small counter with a large cash register 
near the window end. He put three or four comfortable 
wooden chairs around the stove and painted a sign on the 
front window—The Lariat Book Store. J. H. Smith, 
Prop. He then sent to eastern publishers for their cata¬ 
logs and opened the door for business. 

He had done all this the year he had sent Hugh to the 
University at Laramie. He had made an excellent cow¬ 
boy of Hugh. He wanted him ultimately to be president 
of the United States. If there had been the office of 
president of the world, Bookie would have destined Hugh 
for that, with a complete conviction of his foster child’s 
fitness for the job. 

Bookie was scowling over a dog-eared account book 
when Hugh came in. 

“I just can’t find where I set down those sales,” he said. 
“The dude trade’ll be opening up now and I’ve got to 
know where I stand.” 

Hugh chuckled and perched on the counter, looking 
about the store with an air of humorous content. This 
was home. 

“Uncle Bookie,” he said, “I want to ask you as one old 
timer to another, did any one ever get up courage to use 
the brass cuspidor?” 

Bookie gave the question careful consideration. “I 
think once Johnny Parnell tried it when he thought I 
wasn’t looking. I’m not sure, and I wouldn’t want to 
accuse him wrongly.” 

Both men grinned and turned to look as the door opened, 
and a gust of fine sand blew in, followed by old Red Wolf. 

“What are you trading today, Red Wolf?” asked 
Bookie. 


FORT SIOUX 


43 

The Indian pulled a pair of moccasins from his pocket. 
Bookie gave the beaded footgear a cursory glance and 
shook his head. 

“I’ve told you forty times, Red Wolf, I want the kind 
of bead work the squaws learned from their grandmothers 
and not the kind the missionaries teach them.” 

“That’s good. My girl made ’em!’’ protested Red Wolf. 

“I don’t care who made it. She got chamois skin and 
beads at the Ten Cent Store in Cheyenne and a design off 
a Pullman carpet. I want buckskin and real Indian de¬ 
signs, like the bucks wore when you and I were young. 
Rabbit tracks in the snow, eagles flying. You know, Red 
Wolf.” 

“They won’t make ’em,” said the Indian dejectedly. 

“O go on and swap with him, Uncle Bookie!” ex¬ 
claimed Hugh. “You’re being artistic in restraint of 
trade!” ^ - 

His uncle smiled, took a fresh bit of plug and went over 
to a row of shop-worn books. He handed a copy of 
Keats’ poems, bound in bright red, to the Indian. Red 
Wolf glanced eagerly through the pages, then shook his 
head. 

“No good. No pictures,” he said. 

“There, you see, Hugh! He wants the same thing 
in books that I want in bead work. Here, choose for 
yourself, Red Wolf.” 

The Indian moved to the shelf with alacrity. The door 
swung open again and a broad, ruddy young man clanked 
in. He wore a sombrero, short leather coat and angora 
chaps. Silver spurs rang as he clanked down the room. 

“Hello, Hughie Stewart!” he roared. 

“Hello, Johnny Parnell!” returned Hughie. 

“Say, Bookie, have you got a new western story?” 


44 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

asked Johnny, in a voice that could be heard to the top of 
the canyon. 

“Yes. Roping ’Em. On the shelf by the window. 
How’s everything up at the ranch?” 

“Much as usual. First bunch of dudes for the season 
coming today,” Johnny groaned. 

“Why don’t you go to work at a regular job?” asked 
Bookie. “Why should a real cowman like you want to 
make a living riding herd on a lot of dudes?” 

Johnny groaned again. “I often wonder that very 
thing myself, Bookie. Guess what I need to make a man 
of me is a wife. Couldn’t locate one for me, could you. 
Bookie?” 

“I might,” admitted Bookie. 

“Be sure you pick one that can earn her own living,” 
grinned Johnny. “I can support myself but only a little 
over. I’ve got to have one of these here new women. 
Not one of these lazy beauties like Jess. I’ll bet you pay 
a luxury tax on her, eh, Hughie?” 

“Jess is all right,” said Hugh. 

Johnny tossed him a quick look. “You don’t have to 
tell me that, Hughie. I knew it before you did. You’re 
sure that’s a western story, Bookie? I don’t read any 
other kind.” 

“Why not?” asked Bookie. 

“Well, being foreman on a dude ranch like I am, I get 
homesick for real western life. So as soon as the dudes 
begin to come in, I begin to load up on western novels. 
And every once in a while, I find a writer that don’t mount 
his horse from the right side!” 

His listeners laughed with him. Bookie wrapped the 
volume, the cash register rang and Johnny clanked out. 
A moment later he flashed by the window on a rearing 
horse. Bookie watched a squaw herd a bunch of scraggly 


FORT SIOUX 


45 

Indian ponies toward the railroad corral, then he sauntered 
back to the stove. 

“Have you found anything you want, Red Wolf?” he 
asked. 

The Indian, who was gazing delightedly into a large 
book which he had opened to a full-page illustration, 
grunted assent. It was a cheap and worn edition of 
Dante’s Inferno, with illustrations by Dore. 

“Those pictures will make you squirm, all right,” smiled 
Bookie. 

The Indian nodded soberly. “Show ’em to the squaws. 
Scare ’em to death.” He buttoned the book under his 
mackinaw and went out softly. 

“I’ll be off again tomorrow or next day, Uncle Bookie. 
I had a request from England this morning for a bronto¬ 
saur.” 

“Are you going to leave things up in the air with Jes¬ 
sie?” asked the older man. 

“How can I do otherwise ? She’s too brainless to argue 
with.” 

Bookie shook his head. “Jessie has a brain. She’s lazy- 
minded, that’s all. I didn’t want you to marry her, I’ll 
admit, but it wasn’t that I had anything in particular 
against Jessie, as I’ve told you fifty times. A boy of 
twenty-two has no business to marry if he’s a growing 
man. And you were that. Not that I’m knocking Jessie, 
either. She’s got a lot to her, but you don’t seem able to 
bring it out.” 

“Well, where does it all lead to?” sighed Hugh. 

The older man did not answer. He turned from watch¬ 
ing Hugh, to the window where beyond the locomotive 
shops rose the mighty red wall of the canyon, weathered 
and buttressed into shapes of exceeding strength and 
beauty. After his gaze had swept from base to summit, 


4 6 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

he turned, and diving under the shelf, he brought up a 
slab of rock which he slid carefully onto the counter. 
Hugh stared at it, then examined it minutely, scarcely 
seeming to breathe as he did so. 

“By Jove, it might be the skin of a trachodon! Where 

did you get it, Uncle Bookie?” 

“A young Sioux brought it in this winter. I swapped 
him an illustrated copy of Gulliver's Travels for it. He 
wouldn’t tell me where he found it. You’ll have to get 
that information through old Red Wolf. All I hope is 
that it’s near enough to Fort Sioux so you won’t have to 
be gone long to dig it up.” 

Hugh, suddenly roused from his absorption in the fos¬ 
sil by a certain drop in the old man’s voice, turned and 
repeated thoughtfully, “You hope I won’t have to be gone 
long to dig it up? Why do you say that, Uncle Bookie?” 

Bookie smiled but did not reply. 

Hugh took a turn or two up and down the room. Then 
he paused and put a long, sinewy brown hand on the old 
man’s shoulder. 

“Uncle Bookie, you’re lonely.” 

“Well, supposing I am! Most people are, as I’ve said 
before. You are lonely yourself.” 

“No man is entirely lonely who loves his work as I do 
mine.” Hugh still scrutinized the older man’s brown 
eyes. 

“I doubt if you love your dinosaurs any more than I 
do my books.” 

“Oh, books!” exclaimed Hugh in his gently modulated 
voice. “Books! Just paper and print, all of them! Me, 
I live with the giants. While you are conning old fairy 
tales, I’m actually resurrecting the past. I’m making 
dead ages live again. I’m a magician whose magic you 
can put your hand on and feel.” 


FORT SIOUX 


47 

“Perhaps!” Bookie smiled. “But I’m consorting with 
the great thinkers of all ages.” 

Hugh dropped his hand from his foster uncle’s shoulder 
and walked back to look at the river from the rear window. 
It was brimming its banks, but its overflow was done for 
the year. An airplane dropped to the canyon floor west 
of the river. 

“The mail is early today,” said Bookie. 

Hugh did not hear him. “I have the feeling,” he said 
without turning from the window, “that I’m making a 
mighty poor return to you for all you’ve done for me. 
You supported me from the time I was ten until I finished 
college. I married against your wishes. You’re dissatis¬ 
fied with my profession. And it hurts me.” 

“A man has a right to choose his own work and his 
own wife,” replied Bookie. “You’ll have to put up with 
my growling. I’m like any other old hen with one 
chicken.” 

Hugh glanced at the cot back of the stove where Bookie 
slept. “I think I’ll move another cot in here, Uncle 
Bookie, and stay with you between trips.” 

The older man shook his head. “It will just cause talk, 
and anyhow, I’m not lonely that way. Mine’s just the 
loneliness of one kind of old age. The loneliness of look¬ 
ing back at wasted years and forward to—nothing. You 
stay with Jessie.” He paused and shook his head. “You 
young fellows of this generation are ruining your women. 
My generation of women was worth twenty of yours. We 
were all pioneers and we expected the women to work as 
hard as we did. And they rose to the scratch. They were 
wonders! Why, even Mrs. Morgan in her younger days 
up on the old Bar X did the work of three people. And 
even now, in spite of all her faults, she’s a dray horse for 
work. But this new generation of town women that you 


48 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

fellows keep in idleness—Huh! You get about what you 
deserve for your softness!” 

“You’d better let me move in with you,” repeated Hugh. 
“I have a feeling that you don’t look well.” 

“Any man unlucky enough to survive the grub at the 
Indian Massacre for ten years has a right not to look well,” 
retorted Bookie. “You stay with your wife. A genera¬ 
tion ago you wouldn’t have thought of leaving her. You’d 
have needed her work too much. Go on up and take a look 
at the new bone ranch. I know you’re honing for it.” 

Hugh, curiously enough Bookie thought, went out re¬ 
luctantly. 


CHAPTER III 


UNCLE BOOKIE 

/CUSTOMERS were even fewer than usual, if possible, 
that day, and the old man thought a great deal about 
himself and his boy. 

Before the day was over, he regretted his refusal to 
allow Hugh to bring his cot to The Lariat. After all, 
wasn’t his influence over the boy better than Jessie’s? 
Might he not still win Hugh to something big, if he could 
have the young man with him as in the old days on the 
ranch ? 

That evening he began to make room in the rear of the 
store for Hugh’s cot. The famous bookcases never had 
been filled with books. But an accumulation of magazines 
during the years had packed the case at the rear from floor 
to ceiling. Bookie had an idea that if he set the great 
bookcase at right angles to the wall, letting it stand par- 
titionwise as did the stacks in the library at Cheyenne, a 
natural screen, as it were, would be formed between his 
cot and Hugh’s. He liked a certain amount of privacy 
in his old age, did Bookie, after a youth lived naked to the 
stars. So he grasped the shelves and pulled them free 
of the wall. 

The next morning Hugh, immediately after breakfast, 
fastened his horse before The Lariat and found the door 
locked. He grunted with surprise. Bookie had not been 
at the hotel for breakfast that morning. He put his 
hands round his eyes and peered through the window. 

49 


50 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

One of the bookcases in the rear had fallen with its mass 
of magazines. Hugh seized his saddle axe, broke the lock 
on the door and ran the length of the room. A lean old 
hand protruded from beneath the fallen book stack. 

“Uncle Bookie!” shouted Hugh, beginning to heave 
madly at the bundle of magazines. 

There was no reply. But when he had cleaned the 
debris away, Hugh found that the old man was still 
breathing. He ran for help and returned with the doctor, 
Pink, Mrs. Morgan and Jessie. There was not much to 
be done. Internal hemorrhages. In an hour, Hugh was 
alone with the old man, still breathing faintly. The doctor 
had thought he would not waken, but he did. 

All the golden May day Hugh sat beside the cot, his 
hand on Bookie’s. Folk drifted softly in and out, none 
venturing to speak to Hugh, after a glance at his face. 
The mail-plane, across the river, took on its daily gorge 
of oil, gasoline and letters, preened and burred like a 
grounded pigeon, then rose in a long, proud spiral and 
disappeared in the blue above the castellated ramparts of 
the canyon. At sunset a sheep wagon, with canvas top 
flapping in the spring wind, wound down the distant cork¬ 
screw trail and made camp on the river bank opposite The 
Lariat’s rear window. Above the rush of the river, as the 
setting sun turned its troubled brown to bronze, rose 
the song of the Mexican sheep herder: 

“Whither so swiftly flies the timid swallow? 

What distant bourne seeks her untiring wing? 

To reach her nest, what needle does she follow 
When darkness wraps the poor, wee, storm-tossed 
thing?” 

Bookie’s brown eyes opened slowly and his fine gaze 
rested on the square of burning bronze light that the 
window frame still outlined. 


UNCLE BOOKIE 


5i 

“Old Pablo making ready for the spring herding, 1 ” he 
said. “Light the lamp, Hughie.” 

Hugh obeyed and the wistful brown eyes followed the 
line of Hugh’s noble head against the untrimmed wick. 

“I was conscious for quite a while after the smash,” 
Bookie said, scarcely above a whisper. “I was fixing up 
a bedroom for you. Sort of glad it was books finished 
me off after all. I always thought it would be Indian 
Massacre pies.” 

“Don’t!” said Hugh tensely, his hand again seeking 
Bookie’s. 

“Don’t feel too bad, my boy! After all, I’ve read all 
the books that are really filling. Give Red Wolf that old 
copy of Roderick Random. He always wanted it. Likes 
the pictures. My will is in the bottom of the cash 
register.” 

His voice trailed off. But Hugh knew that he hadn’t 
finished. He seemed to be listening to the familiar lines 
of Pablo’s song— 

“. . . here to my couch I’ll call her, 

Why go so far, dark and strange skies to seek, 

Safe would she be, no evil should befall her, 

For I’m an exile, sad, too sad to weep.” 

And indeed, he opened his eyes again to say: “I’ve 
heard him sing that every spring for ten years. Exiles. 
So we are. From what, Hughie? From our own best 
selves, perhaps— Don’t make my mistake—for God’s sake 
don’t! Give all—all—all-” 

Bookie’s head jerked back on the pillow. He fought 
for a moment, face distorted, while death rattled in 
his throat, and he was gone, leaving his face serenely 
beautiful. 

Hugh stood beside him, looking down at the sunken 



52 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

eyes. “The best friend I’ll ever have/’ he thought. “My 
only real friend. I’ll never get over missing him.” 

After a moment he stopped the trembling of his lips by 
pressing his clenched fist against them, and turned the 
light low. Then he went to the door and sent a passer-by 
for the undertaker. 

Three or four days later, Judge Proctor, who never had 
been a judge but was everybody’s lawyer, met Hugh and 
the three Morgans at The Lariat, to read the will. Bookie 
had written it himself, about three weeks previous to his 
death. 

“I want Hugh to have all that I possess. The ranch of 
five thousand acres and all the appurtenances thereto. 
And I want him to have the ten thousand acres of unim¬ 
proved land between the ranch and the river, known as 
the Old Sioux Tract. And I want him to have The Lariat 
Book Store with all its appurtenances, some of which 
I herewith list. 

“First of all, the feeling of leisure brought by living in 
four walls that are lined with books. 

“Second, the calm feeling that comes when you know 
that everything you have thought or suffered has been 
thought and suffered before and set down in books that 
are under your roof. 

“Third, the voice of the river which tells more than 
Homer ever dreamed. 

“Fourth, the pictures that every day pass the window 
of The Lariat. 

“Fifth, the solicitude for Wyoming which comes when 
you see the attitude of its citizens toward books and the 
understanding of these people which comes when you 
realize what they refuse to read. 

“All these with the ranch and the Old Sioux Tract go 
to Hugh, with one proviso. That from the date of my 


UNCLE BOOKIE 


53 

death for the period of two years, giving up the business 
of fossil hunting, he devote himself entirely to running 
The Lariat. If he refuses to do this, I direct Judge 
Proctor, acting as my executor, to dispose of my entire 
property and turn the proceeds over to the Boston Public 
Library, the fund to be known by my mother’s name, the 
Mary Haverford Smith Memorial.” 

The will had been duly signed and witnessed. Judge 
Proctor read the signatures, then looked at Hugh. He 
was perched on the counter as usual, his face haggard 
from grief. Mrs. Morgan looked at him, too, glancing 
quickly from his somber eyes to the uneasy fingers that 
worked over his pipe bowl. Jessie looked at him, her 
gorgeous hair like masses of rose gold above her blue 
dress, with tired shadows dominating her gaze. And 
Pink looked at him, holding a piece of plug half-way to 
his lips. 

Hugh spoke slowly. “Go ahead and sell the property, 
Judge. The dear old chap had no right to do that to me. 
He’s even tried to bribe me with the Old Sioux Tract!” 

“No, Hugh! No!” cried Jessie, suddenly. “Not such 
a quick decision. Sleep on it!” 

“Jess has a right to say something about your giving 
away a property like that!” exclaimed Pink. 

Mrs. Morgan turned suddenly from Hugh to the 
lawyer. “Isn’t there some law to keep a man from mak¬ 
ing that kind of a fool of himself, Judge?” she demanded. 

Hugh was staring at Jessie with all the disillusion of 
his years of marriage in his eyes. “I’ll sleep on it, Jessie, 
but I warn you, I can’t be changed.” 

“You’ve got to be changed!” cried Mrs. Morgan, and 
she electrified them all by bursting into tears. She refused 
at any one’s more or less earnest solicitation to explain the 
tears, and after a moment she rose and left the store. 


54 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Hughie—” began Pink, drawing a long breath. Jessie 
interrupted him abruptly. 

“O you run along home, Dad. You just add to the 
confusion.” 

Pink was seriously offended. He threw the perfectly 
good plug of tobacco violently out of the window. “Of 
course,” he said, “it’s yours and Hughie’s business. Come 
on, Judge, let’s get out.” 

“I’ll take the will along and send you back a copy, 
Hughie,” said the Judge. “Take time to this, my boy. 
Old Bookie was the wisest man I ever knew.” 

Hugh did not reply. He remained leaning against the 
book shelves and Jessie sat facing him for a long time 
after they were left alone. Hugh had the feeling that 
everything that either of them had to say to the other on 
this or any other topic had long ago been said. He stood 
with his jaw set, obstinately. And after all, Jessie said 
something that she never had said before! 

“Hughie, what is it you dislike about me?” 

Her husband did not betray his surprise. “I dislike 
your lazy mind,” he replied, with what must have seemed 
to Jessie insulting readiness. 

But she did not even blink. “Anything else, Hughie?” 

“I dislike your using your physical charms on me to 
gain what you want.” 

“Anything else, Hughie?” 

“No!” 

“How do you mean, lazy mind?” The phrase was 
going to stick by her. 

“Anybody born with a good brain that won’t use it is 
lazy minded.” 

“Hughie, I have an idea that I need The Lariat as much 
as you do.” 

“Huh! So that’s the game, is it?” ejaculated Hugh. 


UNCLE BOOKIE 


55 

He had been managed for years by Jessie and every hostile 
instinct was constantly on the alert. 

Jessie ignored the thrust. “I’d stay in the store with 
you, Hughie, and I’d read whatever you wanted me to 
read.” 

“The tragic part of that is,” returned Hugh, “that I 
don’t care any more whether you read or not. Don’t 
deceive yourself, Jessie. I can’t be won back by intrigue. 
When a man loves his work as I do mine and his wife 
laughs at it, it’s all he can do to keep from growing to hate 
her. You and your mother between you have done a sweet 
job of bronco-breaking on me.” 

“And aren’t you at all to blame, Hughie?” 

“I suppose I am. But at least, I’m doing something, 
even if every one does think that something is futile. 
You’ve no idea how you’ve given up doing anything but 
nagging me.” 

“Hugh,” said Jessie, suddenly, “you loved me once, 
didn’t you?” 

Hugh returned her steady look with one of tragic 
earnestness. “You’ll never know how much that boy who 
used to be Hugh, cared about you. Why, in those first 
days, Jessie, if you’d only shown that you cared for what 
I was doing, you and I could have made a big job of our 
marriage. But it’s too late now. You chose to take me 
not as I was but as something you thought you could 
make of me. You’ve turned me from a lover into a bitter 
and resentful husband.” 

“And I am a bitter and disappointed wife,” said Jessie. 

“I’m sorry,” returned Hugh. “I would have changed 
it all at first if I could. Now, I don’t care.” 

“I think we both care,” Jessie spoke slowly, “or we 
wouldn’t both be so bitter.” 

Hugh again looked at her suspiciously. “I don’t care,” 


56 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

he insisted. “Don’t start off on some intrigue connected 
with me, Jessie. I always find you out and it makes me 
angry.” 

“It’s so easy to make you angry these days,” sighed 
Jessie, turning away. 

“Then surely it would be wisest and kindest to let me 
alone,” said her husband. 

Jessie looked from Hugh to the open door, watched 
the sand blow up the empty, ugly street; then she turned 
on her heel and left The Lariat. 

Hugh locked the door, opened the rear window, lighted 
his pipe and began to pace the floor. And began to think. 

Twilight came on. 

Only the man whose work fulfills the urgent desire of 
his mind and absorbs the best of his talents, whose work 
fits the peculiar needs of his temperament and appeals to 
every angle of his imagination can understand Hugh’s 
love for the particular branch of geology which he had 
made his own, or appreciate fully the devastating nature 
of the demand in Bookie’s will. 

How could he, how could he cut himself off for two 
years from his all-engrossing pursuit? How could he 
refuse to heed that thrilling urge which even now tingled 
beneath his grief and bewilderment? 

The fragment of fossil skin still lay on the counter 
beside the row of western novels. Hugh traced its scaly 
surface with his fingers. Instantly his imagination closed 
the door on the wretched present and the stone beneath his 
fingers became the armor plate of a giant lizard, striding 
on mighty hind legs along a sandy beach. He saw its 
terrible pointed teeth, its sharp curved claws, its little 
pestilent head, towering forty feet in the air. He saw 
similar beasts moving among the fern-like trees that bor¬ 
dered the beach. He beheld the sun glowing through the 


UNCLE BOOKIE 57 

gentle mists and smelled the odors of vast waters and 
vaster vegetation. 

He saw another dinosaur, fit mate in size to this, 
devouring the broken carcass of a huge turtle; saw the two 
great brutes meet in mortal conflict and heard the whir of 
mighty wings as lesser creatures fled the environs of the 
unthinkable battle. 

And then, his imagination leaped across countless ages, 
across the inconceivably slow movement of geologic time; 
past the imperceptible piling of sand grain on sand, the 
unnoted lap of waters on waters, of encroaching and 
receding seas, of lifting and of sinking mountains and 
the interminable coursing of the ageless winds. Across 
all these, in an instant his vision leaped to the tiny figure 
of a man, digging in the Old Sioux Tract to uncover the 
bones of two giant dinosaurs, still locked in mortal com¬ 
bat, the broken carcass of the turtle still beneath their 
feet, the tracks of the fleeing lesser beasts still traced in 
the imperishable sands of that long-perished beach. 

Hugh pushed the bit of fossil skin back beside the last 
western novel and turned to the book shelves. Row on 
row, the thoughts of the few men who had been able to 
express themselves in the little time that had elapsed since 
man replaced the dinosaur. God, thought Hugh, what an 
exchange! To take from him the work of uncovering the 
priceless manuscript of the ages and offer him in return 
the bartering of a book for a pair of moccasins. 

Every fiber of his nature said no! 

Every fiber? 

Slowly he made his way back to the open window, and 
pulling a chair before it, he put his elbows on the window¬ 
sill and with his eyes on the dim, black rolling of the river, 
he fell to thinking of Bookie and of all that Bookie had 
been to him after his father and mother had died. How 


58 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

necessary the rancher had been to him then, and how com¬ 
pletely Bookie had shared with the boy all that he had 
accumulated of wisdom and wealth! He had been a very, 
very wise man, and because this was so and because he 
had loved Bookie deeply and truly, Hugh never had felt 
fully justified in refusing to follow Bookie’s plan for his 
career. 

And heavens, how weary he was of this constant sense 
of people’s disapproval. Two years! Two whole years of 
his tiny, tiny span of life! 

As for Jessie—no, beyond decently supporting her, he 
acknowledged no sense of obligation there. She was fully 
competent to build up a life of her own that she would 
find far more satisfactory than her marriage with him 
had been. 

Two years! Two whole years of his tiny, tiny life. 

Over the serene top of the black canyon wall surged the 
yellow moon. Across its mellow face moved a line of 
diminutive silhouetted horses. Some one was belated on 
the trail. Johnny Parnell, perhaps, bringing down a few 
mounts for such enterprising dudes as would wish to use 
the saddle on the ride to the ranch, instead of the jitney. 

There were lights on the canyon floor in the air-mail 
camp. The west-going mail must be late. 

If you refuse to accede to a loved one’s wishes while 
he lives, of what avail is it to accede to them after death? 

Ah, but Bookie had wished it to be so! Two years! 
Bookie, after giving all that he had to Hugh for twenty- 
five years, asked in return two years, and he meant, Hugh 
knew, that these two years should be given to books and 
to Bookie’s thought on them and on the people of Wyo¬ 
ming who passed the window of The Lariat. To exile 
himself for two years from his work. Exile! What a 
tragic word! “Exiles. So we are. From what—from 


UNCLE BOOKIE 


59 

what, Hugh? . . . Don’t make my mistake, for God’s 
sake, don’t. Give all—all-” 

What had the old man meant? 

Hugh buried his face in his hands and retreated into 
that inner sanctuary whose walls are truth and whose 
altar is sacrifice; the sanctuary into which a man dares 
to retreat but once or twice in his life, lest the clarity of 
vision wrought within unbalance his will. When Hugh 
emerged, his hands were shaking and his eyes were con¬ 
tracted. But his decision was made. He would give the 
two years to Bookie. 

The next morning, Pink entered the shop with an air 
of solemn purposefulness. Hugh looked up from the 
letter he was writing. 

“I want to take up that matter of the will,” Pink 
announced. 

“It’s not necessary,” returned Hugh. “I’ve made up 
my mind to stay here for two years.” 

“Here! By gosh!” exclaimed Pink. “I told the Missis 
the bait would be too tempting for you not to swaller it. 
She can quit her sniveling now.” 

“Yes,” Hugh set his jaw, “you all can rest in peace for 
two years.” 

“Huh! If you live a white man’s life for two years, 
you’ll never quit it. And I’ll guarantee that the women 
folks shan’t pester you, Hughie.” 

Hugh smiled. “What’s the use of giving a guarantee 
you know you can’t keep, Pink?” 

Pink drew himself up with offended dignity. “I tell 
you,” he shouted, “I’ve turned over a new leaf. From 
now on, I’m going to be master in my own house! From 
now on-” 

He did not finish his sentence, for Johnny Parnell 
strolled in. “What’s the row?” he inquired. 




to THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Hughie’s always insinuating that I ain’t a man,” 
declared Pink, ‘‘and I’m sick of it.” 

“Hughie, how do you know he isn’t a man?” grinned 
Johnny. 

“If you hadn’t interrupted, Pink would have proved it 
in a minute!” Hugh blotted his letter, smiling up at his 
father-in-law whimsically. 

“Oh, you two go to thunder!” said Pink sheepishly. 
“Did many dudes come in on the Limited for you, 
Johnny?” 

“Quite a bunch. They are touring Fort Sioux while 
they wait for dinner. Some of ’em will be in here, 
Hughie. Get ready to rob ’em.” 

“I’m not going to begin to sell things for a day or two, 
not till I get a little accustomed to the idea,” said Hugh. 

“You are a wonder!” exclaimed Pink. “Let me keep 
store for you, if you are too refined for the job. Just for 
today! Come on, Hugh. Let me! I’ll show you real 
salesmanship.” 

“Go to it!” Hugh acquiesced, with a relieved air. 

Two men, obviously tourists, entered The Lariat at that 
moment and Pink, with a large air of proprietorship, 
lounged forward to meet them. 

“What can I show you folks?” he asked. 

“We’re just looking around, if that’s permitted,” replied 
one of the men. 

“Sure! Help yourself! Looks is cheap.” Pink grinned 
affably. “Come in, ladies!” as several women hesitated 
in the doorway. “Walk right up and see the elephant. 
Them jars, sir,” as one of the visitors lifted a Mohave 
olla, “is made by the Sioux squaws. You’ll see some of 
’em go along the street shortly.” 

Hugh stirred uneasily. Pink went on: 

“That blue and gray blanket is a part of a Sioux chief’s 


UNCLE BOOKIE 61 

war outfit. Belonged to old Red Wolf. You’re liable to 
see him any moment.” 

“That’s a Chemhuive chief’s robe, Pink,” protested 
Hugh. “The tribe that made it is extinct and the blanket 
is almost priceless.” 

“O, dry up, Hughie! I’m salesman here!” protested 
Pink. 

Johnny put his hand on Hugh’s arm and again Hugh 
subsided. The visitors smiled and one of the men pointed 
to a fossil fragment that filled a shelf behind the stove. 
“What may that be?” he asked. 

“That,” replied Pink, scowling defiantly at Hugh, “is 
the collar bone of a fossilized ostrich.” 

“How does that check up with your ideas?” the visitor 
turned to Hugh. 

“Well,” Hugh was smiling now, himself, “my ideas 
and Pink’s agree on horse-breaking, but not on fossils and 
Indian remains. Not belittling your selling ability any. 
Pink, I’d like to say that that fragment, I hope, is part of 
the foreleg of a gigantic dinosaur, a reptile, you know, 
that lived around here in bygone ages.” 

“My word, you don’t mean it!” With varied exclama¬ 
tions the visitors eyed the fragment. 

“I’ve seen them in museums,” said one of the women, 
a slender, well-groomed person, in brown. “But some¬ 
how that bone means more out here.” 

“Want to buy it, anybody?” demanded Pink, still 
belligerently. 

“Wait a moment, Pink!” Hugh put his hand on his 
father-in-law’s shoulder, “that’s not for sale, you know.” 

“O for the Lord’s sake, Hughie, butt out!” roared 
Pink. “I swear, you’ll bankrupt this place before you’ve 
had it two months. I’ve always suspected you was a fool 
and now I know it.” For a moment he continued to revile 


62 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Hugh, the newcomers looking on half curiously, half in 
embarrassment. 

Johnny Parnell would have interfered had not the look 
of anger on Hugh’s face suddenly been replaced by his 
charming smile. “All right, Pink, old man!” he inter¬ 
rupted. “All you say about me, Fve often thought myself. 
So don’t hold the facts against me.” 

There was something infinitely appealing in Hugh’s 
voice and manner. 

“I won’t,” said Pink, mollified in spite of himself. 
“But you keep out from now on.” 

“Let me make just one suggestion.” Hugh’s eyes were 
twinkling. “Give these people their dinner before you try 
to sell anything to them. Remember that the dining car 
was dropped at Cheyenne early this morning.” 

Pink looked hastily at his watch. “Gosh! It is dinner 
time. Come on, folks!” and he led the way out of the 
shop. In spite of all his vilification of the Indian Mas¬ 
sacre, Pink loved nothing better than presiding at a table 
filled with tourists. 

One of the visitors remained behind. It wasThe woman 
who had spoken of the fossil. She was tall and slender 
and the most perfectly groomed woman that Hugh ever 
had seen. From the shining waves of her brown hair, to 
the shining vamps of her tan shoes, she was flawless. Her 
delicate skin was without blemish. So were the lines of 
her regular, clean-cut features. Her eyebrows arched in 
two fine curves. Her mouth was exquisitely turned. 
When she lifted clear hazel eyes to Plugh, her lips parted 
over the whitest teeth he ever had seen. 

“Well,” she said, casually, “he left without bloodshed.” 

Hugh chuckled, “I’m a constant irritant to Pink. You 
see, I know his weak points better than he knows mine.” 

“He is the hotel keeper?” asked the visitor. 


UNCLE BOOKIE 


63 

“Yes, Pink Morgan. An old cowman and not a bad 
fellow at all. Just restless because he is trying to be some¬ 
thing he wasn’t intended to be.” 

Hugh sighed as he spoke. His auditor gave him a curi¬ 
ous glance, then turned to the book shelves. 

“You run largely to western fiction, I see,” she said. 

Hugh nodded. “My uncle was told by the librarian at 
Cheyenne that seventy-five per cent of the fiction called for 
up there was western stuff.” 

“That’s naive !” exclaimed the visitor. 

Hugh considered before he answered. “The westerners 
I know are not naive. Anything but that! You’ve prob¬ 
ably guessed wrong.” 

“What is the answer then?” smiling as she spoke. 

“I haven’t tried to think of one. You see, I’m new at 
this game.” 

“But you are a westerner?” 

“Yes, ma’am! Born and bred in the sage brush. My 
name is Hugh Stewart.” 

“I am Miss Page. Miriam Page. Do you mind if I tell 
you that I enjoyed your encounter with Mr. Morgan very 
much?” 

“I suppose it was funny, to an outsider,” agreed Hugh, 
a little ruefully. 

“No, it really wasn’t funny,” said Miriam Page. “It 
was the thing you put over on Morgan and the rest of us. 
You are a curious person to be a book-store keeper.” 

“Aren’t I!” agreed Hugh again, comically. “At the 
same time let me return the compliment by saying that 
you look exactly the way a lady dude ought to look!” 

“Are you sure that’s a compliment?” asked Miss Page, 
hastily. 

“Absolutely!” Hugh hesitated, eyeing his caller’s 


64 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

animated face with interest. “When you’re not a iady 
dude, would you mind telling me what you are?” 

She smiled, showing her beautiful teeth again. “When 
I’m at home, in Boston, I’m an investment adviser in a 
bank.” 

“My word!” Hugh frankly was impressed. “Do you 
expect to be happy at the dude ranch?” 

“I feel as if I’d begun well,” returned Miss Page. 
“You aren’t a cowboy, are you?” looking in a puzzled way 
at Hugh’s riding clothes. 

“No, I’m a maverick!” Hugh shook his head. “I 
expect eventually to go loco and be shot by a stock inspec¬ 
tor!” Then, as she smiled in a puzzled way, he added, 
“I’m a paleontologist, a digger of fossils. I’m afraid that 
you are going to miss your lunch.” 

“I want to,” said Miss Page. “I’ve had a headache.” 

Hugh gave her a sudden, slow, steady look. “The outfit 
won’t start for the ranch until two. I wish you would 
sit down and talk.” 

Neither Miriam Page nor Hugh ever was to forget that 
hour. For each of them knew before that hour was over 
that this was to each of them far more than a casual 
meeting. 

People drifted in and out of The Lariat and Hugh took 
care of them in the half cursory, half whimsical manner 
of which he was so entirely unconscious. He was not a 
good salesman, but he was a delightful curio-shop keeper. 
Miriam caught at once the sense of Hugh’s elusive charm. 
It had not deserted him even when he had been out of 
temper with Pink. It was present now in his badinage, 
in his wide impersonal viewpoint and his eager looking 
beyond the walls as he spoke of his work. She felt, too, 
his restlessness and his mental hunger. And she had a 
strange conviction, as, under her skilled questioning, he 


UNCLE BOOKIE 65 

told her more of himself, that here was a man far too big 
to remain in The Lariat or in Fort Sioux. 

And Hugh—Hugh who had finished with the sex for¬ 
ever—was meeting in Miriam Page that which he had not 
known a woman could possess: a mind long trained in 
competitive thinking with keen-thinking men, a mind with 
the suavity and complexity of a widely experienced man’s. 
Coupled with this, a physical presence that was the very 
essence of the feminine. Hugh was disturbed, bewildered, 
fascinated. He was meeting sex attraction in one of its 
most subtle and intoxicating forms. 

They talked of many things, Miriam watching Hugh 
with more and more interest. She was naturally an im¬ 
pulsive human being. But her business training had 
refined the impulsiveness into a capacity for making 
instant decisions of a far-seeing kind. An hour’s con¬ 
versation with Hugh brought Miriam to making the most 
important decision of either hers or Hugh’s life. 

She wanted Hugh. She proposed to have him. 

Love at first sight is a normal and not at all uncommon 
phenomenon. Miriam had cared before for men. But 
toward Hugh, even at this first meeting, she was experienc¬ 
ing a depth of sensation utterly foreign to her experience. 

Hugh, on the other hand, did not realize at all what had 
happened to him. He knew that he was meeting a woman 
by whom he was unprecedentedly attracted. He was 
not, never had been interested in women in general. He 
had been deeply disappointed in his wife. He had not 
the slightest desire to complicate his life by contact with 
any other woman. And so even his habit of self-analysis 
did not suffice to warn him, until it was too late. Perhaps, 
even had he recognized his own feeling from the first 
moment of meeting Miriam, it would have been too late. 
A man of Hugh’s type has very little chance to escape 


66 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

from a woman like Miriam. Only Miriam herself could 
provide that chance. 

They talked rapidly of many things in this first meeting. 
They said much and they felt more. But both of their 
faces were mask-like when they turned them toward 
Jessie, sauntering in at the open door. Carefully mask¬ 
like on Hugh’s part, as Jessie saw at once. 

“Hello,” she said casually. “I think you must be the 
Miss Page Johnny Parnell is looking for. The outfit is 
ready to start.” 

“Yes, Pm Miss Page.” Miriam rose. “I had not 
realized that it was so late.” 

“Miss Page,” said Hugh, still without expression, “this 
is my wife.” 

Miriam held out her hand. “I suppose, Mrs. Stewart,” 
she said, “that if you were going out to this ranch, you’d 
go horseback. I wish I were enough of a horsewoman 
to do it.” 

“No, I wouldn’t,” returned Jessie, with her usual lazy 
casualness. “I prefer a car to a horse for a long ride. 
Any one would.” 

“Are the western horses really so difficult to ride?” 
Miss Page went on, pleasantly, but studying Jessie quite 
frankly. 

“It all depends on the horse,” replied Jessie. “You will 
find you’ll have no trouble if your mount is chosen care¬ 
fully. Though you’ll be very muscle sore at first, no mat¬ 
ter how carefully you choose your animal.” 

“I suppose saddle soreness is unknown to you, though,” 
suggested the eastern woman. 

“O I was practically born on a horse,” replied Jessie. 
“Even at that, I’m no such horseman as Hughie.” 

“Nonsense!” Hugh laughed. “Miss Page, Jessie is 
the finest thing in Wyoming on a horse.” 


UNCLE BOOKIE 


6 7 

A curious gleam that a close observer might have 
classed as jealousy showed for a moment in Miriam’s 
eyes. 

“I wonder if the guide won’t be growing impatient,” 
she said as she rose. “Of course, not having your phy¬ 
sique, Mrs. Stewart, I never could have competed with 
you even had I too been fortunate enough to have been 
born on a horse.” 

“Yes, it’s a handicap to be so slight, out in this coun¬ 
try,” agreed Jessie genially. “However, you might make 
a fair rider. If Johnny Parnell doesn’t turn out to be a 
satisfactory, teacher, I’d be glad to give you a few lessons.” 

“What is your price?” asked Miriam in a business-like 
tone. 

Jessie flushed. “O not money!” she returned, soberly. 
“I’d get my—er—price some other way.” 

Johnny Parnell put his head in the door. “Waiting for 
you, Miss Page!” 

“Good-by,” cried Miriam, following after Johnny. 

Jessie turned to Hugh. “She’s as old as you and she 
powders, rouges and plucks her eyebrows.” 

“Is that so?” returned Hugh, indifferently. 

“How long was she here?” 

“Quite some time.” Then he added, clearly, “She has 
a fine mind.” 

“Is that so?” countered Jessie, also indifferently. 

Then they stared at each other with a whole lost world 
of disillusioned youth in their eyes and with open defiance 
and with fearful determination. 

It was Hugh who broke the silence. “Leave me alone, 
Jessie,” he said. “You and your mother needn’t worry 
over me for two years. I’m staked out. All I ask of you 
is that you leave me alone.” 

Jessie’s broad shoulders lifted slightly. But she still 


68 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

spoke casually. “You mean, Hughie, that you don’t want 
me to come into The Lariat at all?” 

“No, I don’t mean that. Come and go as you will, but 
leave me alone. What little work there is here I’ll attend 
to. But don’t dream for a minute that this will of Uncle 
Bookie’s is going to change me. When the two years’ 
exile is over, I’m going back to my work.” 

“What am I to do during that time ?” she asked, without 
for a moment losing her look of indolence. 

“What you’ve always done. Nothing.” 

“Nothing?” 

In sudden desperation Hugh cried, “For heaven’s sake, 
Jess, get yourself a job somewhere!” 

“You mean you want me to support myself?” The 
indolence was replaced now by a voice of incredulous 
shock. 

“I mean I want you to get interested in something 
besides me,” insisted Hugh. 

Jessie gave him a long look and left the shop. 

A day or so later, Pink sauntered into the shop to 
deliver himself of news. “Jessie and her mother have 
had another row. Jessie has took a job with Johnny 
Parnell. She just started up to the ranch. He give her 
a job as lady guide. She’s already took on that Page 
woman for lessons.” 

Hugh slowly laid down a book, while his mind took in 
Jessie’s plan. She was going out to the dude ranch to 
heckle Miriam Page—to insult her with her magnificent 
strength, as only Jessie could. Irritation flamed into 
violent protest. It should not be. 

“Mind the store for me, Pink,” he exclaimed, as he 
rushed out of the door to the hotel corral. 

Not five minutes later, he thundered across the bridge 
on Fossil. Jessie already had reached the foot of the 


UNCLE BOOKIE 


69 

corkscrew trail. He thrust the spurs into Fossil’s flanks. 

Jessie was half-way up the canyon wall when Hugh, 
setting Fossil to the first up-grade, shouted to her. He 
could see Magpie’s impatient champing jaw and Jessie’s 
face peering soberly above it. 

“Wait for me, Jessie!” he shouted. 

“I can’t hold Magpie on this grade. He’s too fresh.” 

“Then wait for me at the top.” 

There was a moment’s silence, then amidst a rattle of 
small stones, Jessie’s voice floated down to him. “I will!” 

She was sitting carelessly astride her mount when 
Fossil panted up the last turn, a lazy half smile on her 
lips, but her eyes defiant. Hugh pulled his horse in head 
to head with Magpie. 

“What’s the idea of your undertaking to teach Miss 
Page to ride?” 

“My first job. It’s all I know—riding.” She grinned 
slowly, showing her strong white teeth. 

“I don’t like it,” said Hugh. “You’d better give it up 
and try something else.” 

Jessie watched a jackrabbit lope slowly across the road. 
He was big and white and he moved as though he used 
only the surface of his strength and speed. 

“You’re too late, Hughie,” she said. 

“Of course, it’s not too late! Don’t try to bluff me, 
Jessie. I know exactly what your idea is and I tell you 
I won’t have it!” 

“Won’t have what?” asked Jessie, lazily examining her 
left spur. 

“I won’t have Miss Page annoyed.” 

“You sure do flatter me,” murmured Jessie. “Anything 
else you want right now, while I’m in my usual genial 
mood?” 


70 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“You’re not a genial person,” said Hugh. “You are 
just lazy. There’s a big difference.” 

Jessie lifted her head and stared at her husband and 
slowly the look of easy grace left her as though a veil had 
dropped, showing her in broad lines of strength and 
determination. 

“No, I’m not genial, Hughie,” she returned, finally, 
“not any more. You don’t understand me yet, though. 
I’ve been ambitious for you. That’s done with. Now 
I’m ambitious for myself.” 

“I’m glad to hear it. I want you to be ambitious for 
yourself. I’ll help you any way I can.” 

“O no you won’t, not with this particular ambition, 
not after you understand what it is.” 

Hugh’s tired eyes returned Jessie’s defiant gaze irri¬ 
tably. 

“What is it you plan for yourself?” he demanded. 
“Why don’t you speak plainly?” 

“I told you you didn’t understand me. You’re fine stuff, 
Hughie, with a splendid mind and a charming personality. 
But you’re selfish.” 

“Perhaps I am. But what are you?” 

Both were speaking in hushed voices of indescribable 
bitterness. 

“I’ve been selfish and lazy, too. But that isn’t all there 
is to me, Hughie. I’m strong and I’m a great lover, 
Plughie. A great lover.” 

Hugh lifted his fine head. “And do you think,” he 
exclaimed, “that all there is to me is that sort of love a 
young man gives when he’s mating? Faugh! Somewhere 
in me there is possible a love that you couldn’t appreciate.” 

“And yet,” said Jessie, “you have told me a hundred 
times that you are through with love. Careful, Hughie. 
You don’t know me. Me—I can fight for my own.” 


UNCLE BOOKIE 


7 i 


“And so can I,” returned her husband. 

“Get me clearly, Hughie. I shall never let her have 
you.” 

“And get me clearly, Jessie. Life is short and I intend 
to live it as I will.” 

“We’ll see!” exclaimed Jessie, roweling Magpie sud¬ 
denly onto the trail. 

Hugh watched her grimly for a moment, then he turned 
his horse homeward. 


CHAPTER IV 


MIRIAM 


HE next morning, Hugh began an inventory of the 



A stock of The Lariat. Fred All ward came in as he 
was listing a set of the Elsie books. 

“What are you doing, Hughie?” he demanded. 

“Who? Me? Why I’m out prospecting the Old Sioux 
Tract,” grunted Hugh, replacing Elsie's Holidays with a 
vicious shove of his long, muscular hand. 

“So I see! Judge was telling me about your having to 
do assessment work for two years. Think the claims are 
worth it?” 

He leaned against the counter, watching Hugh set down 
“i Copy Elsie's Holidays,” in a small, copperplate hand. 
Fred never ceased to find delight in the meticulous accu¬ 
racy and care which marked all that Hugh did. 

Hugh looked up from the account book. “Do you think 
the claims are worth it, Fred?” 

The older man pulled at the ubiquitous piece of plug. 
“Well,” he said, carefully, “I opine that the Old Sioux 
Tract is going to be rich prospecting in your line for a 
good many years. The dude ranch is one of the best in 
this section whether it’s worked for dudes or four-legged 
critters. But this here book store ain’t worth taxes. I 
can’t see just what you’d want with it.” 

Hugh began to fill his pipe slowly. Fred watched him 
keenly. 

After a time he sighed. “Well, Hughie, what do you 


72 


MIRIAM 


73 

expect me to do while you take two years’ rest ? Read this 
what-do-you-call-it, Elsie's Holidays?” 

Hugh smiled. “You go up and prospect the Old Sioux 
Tract. But don’t come in here with reports of your find¬ 
ings. It will just upset me. Keep a good record. Two 
years will pass eventually and I’ll make up for lost time 
then.” 

“How about shipping out old Red Wolf’s Stone Devil?” 
asked Fred. 

“Can’t be done, under the terms of the will, Judge 
Proctor says.” 

“My God, Hughie, you are a fool!” exclaimed Fred. 

Hugh shrugged his shoulders and there was another 
silence broken when Fred said, “Hughie, you won’t last 
a month at this,” peering over his employer’s shoulder as 
he set down concisely in the blankbook— 

I copy Science and Health —Eddy. 

I copy Darkest Africa —Stanley. 

i copy Wind in the Willows —Grahame. 

Fred gave a violent snort and clanked out of the store. 

Pink was the next visitor. He appeared an hour later 
when Hugh was varying the monotony of the book inven¬ 
tory by listing curios— 

I horsehair hackamore, black, very fine. 

i Indian blanket, Chemhuivi. 

“I wonder how that Chemhuivi blanket got up here, 
Pink,” observed Hugh. 

“Mark Olson hocked that with Bookie last summer.” 
Pink spat thoughtfully and accurately into the middle of 
the street. “You remember his wife was a half-breed 
Navajo. He hocked that for money to bury her with. It 
was when you was up in the Jackson Hole country.” 


74 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Hugh nodded and wrote on. 

I pair spurs, silver and turquoise. No leathers. 

I Hualapai water bottle, horsehair and pitch. 

“Found that water bottle up in the same cave where you 
found the petrified turtle, didn’t you?” asked Pink. 

“Yes. Not that one had anything to do with the other,” 
answered Hugh. 

“I don’t see why not. There must of been a point some¬ 
where in them old days when the humans and the critters 
began to overlap.” Pink’s voice was argumentative. He 
rose from the doorstep and came over to examine the 
dusty black water carrier. 

“Well, I’ll tell you what I think.” Hugh lighted his 
pipe, the irked look leaving his eyes. The two men sank 
into chairs and put their feet on the top of the stove. “It 
was probably like this—” began Hugh. 

“Wait a minute,” grunted Pink. “Hell’s a-popping 
again.” 

Mrs. Morgan darted in at the door. “Pink, you prom¬ 
ised me you’d be ready to drive me round town promptly 
at ten.” 

“No, I didn’t. I told you I’d have the car ready at ten. 
You drive yourself.” 

“Pink Morgan, you’ve got to drive me. I’m going to 
every house in this town and find out exactly what they’re 
doing with their garbage and their corrals. I tell you this 
fly nuisance is going to stop in Fort Sioux.” 

“I’m not going. Anyhow, Hughie and I are having a 
business conference. And anyhow, why the car? You 
can hoof it to every house in Fort Sioux in an hour.” 

“I want the car. I’m going with some dignity.” 

Pink glared at his wife helplessly. She was so small, 


MIRIAM 


75 

so persistent, so full of schemes and plans. It was the 
schemes and plans that always routed and finally domi¬ 
nated Pink. He was born to a planless scheme of life. 
He was a congenital herdsman; a rider of the plains, 
where time and urgency do not exist. 

“Pm waiting, Pink,” said Mrs. Morgan. 

Pink muttered something under his breath, rose slowly, 
and without looking at Hugh, followed his wife out of 
The Lariat. A moment later a brisk fusillade rattled the 
windows and Hugh chuckled as he watched the little car 
plow through the sand, Pink in shirt sleeves at the wheel, 
Mrs. Morgan, sitting in the middle of the rear seat, her 
small back as straight and rigid as her tightly compressed 
lips. 

“But they can’t do it to me,” he said aloud, as he went 
back to his inventory. “Neither she nor Jessie can break 
me to the side saddle.” 

It was several days before Hugh heard from Jessie, 
and then only through Johnny Parnell. That resplendent 
cowman, waiting for the Salt Lake train to arrive, lounged 
from the barber shop to the Indian Massacre and from 
the Indian Massacre to The Lariat. 

“That there Miss Page,” he said, “wanted I should pick 
her up a pair of spurs. I guess she’s planning to beat 
Jess in an outfit.” 

Hugh felt his pulses quicken, but he laid down a Smith¬ 
sonian bulletin slowly. “How’s that?” he asked. 

“Well, we supply all the dudes with spurs, if they want 
’em. Miss Page had our usual brand, but when she saw 
Jessie gouging Magpie with those blue enamel Mexicans 
of hers, she got a altogether new ideal of horsemanship, 
I guess. Anyhow, she asked me to stop by here and 
negotiate a flossy pair from you.” 

“That turquoise pair has no leathers,” said Hugh. 


76 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“O I can produce the leathers,” drawled Johnny. “How 
much? Four bits?” 

Hugh laughed. “Take them to her with my compli¬ 
ments.” 

“Don’t you do it! She’s rolling in money. She owns 
a bank or something back in Boston. Maybe it’s the dome 
of the State House. Jessie says she’s the self- and hus¬ 
band-supporting woman I’ve been looking for all these 
terrible years.” 

Johnny pushed his sombrero to the back of his head 
and with a flash of his beautiful teeth offered Hugh a 
cigarette. 

Hugh lighted the cigarette and proceeded awkwardly 
to wrap the spurs. “I suppose Jess is putting Magpie 
through her paces.” 

“U-huh! She’s made more of a hit than all the he- 
guides put together. All the men want to take riding 
lessons, but so far she’s run this Miss Page as favorite. 
Women being queer.” 

“Queer is the word,” agreed Hugh. “Here are the 
spurs. There is no charge. Tell Miss Page I’ll hope to 
see her wear them soon.” 

“Thanks. She’s some woman. An old hand at han¬ 
dling men. Not a flirt, you understand. O no! Some¬ 
thing finished about her method that I can’t sabe! Now, 
Jessie, bless her, you always know exactly what she’s 
doing to you, and that she’s too lazy to do very much. 
But not this other one! Me—I prefer Jessie. But not 
knocking Miss Page. It’s just that after being brought 
up to the Standard Breds, you wouldn’t know exactly how' 
to go about gentling an Arabian. And that’s not knocking 
Jessie, either. You know how I stand about Jess. I’ve 
never made any bones of it.” 

Hugh nodded and Johnny rambled on. 


MIRIAM 


77 

“Hughie, what do you suppose there is between Jessie 
and this here Miss Page?” 

“What do you mean?” asked Hugh, eyeing his old 
friend keenly. 

“It’s hard to say. The books w T ould call it subtle! I 
think they are watching each other and, honest to God, 
Hughie, I think neither one would mind if the other fell 
down a canyon wall and was lost forever. If I thought 
Jessie cared enough about you, I’d say she was jealous. 
That is, if you’d known Miss Page long enough.” 

“Women are queer,” repeated Hugh vacuously. 

“They took a long trip the other day and Miss Page 
came in alone about sunset. Jessie, she didn’t get back 
till moon-up, two hours later. I jumped her and she said 
she and Miss Page had an argument. That the other one 
insisted on leaving her and coming home and Jess went on 
and finished the trip alone. Naturally, I was mad at 
Jessie and told her she’d lose her job of guide if such a 
thing ever happened again. She knows as well as I do 
that you’ve got to expect a dude to be crazy, and it’s 
always the guide’s job to stick with ’em.” 

“What did Jessie say?” asked Hugh. 

“She grunted.” Johnny suddenly laughed. “She also 
said a little later that I hadn’t complained when she’d let 
that fat school marm from Duluth come home alone the 
day before. Which was perfectly true. So there you are! 
Miss Page, as Jessie knows, is a peach, and Jessie, as Miss 
Page knows, is a pippin.” 

Hugh smiled, and after Johnny had jingled out, he 
looked after him, recalling the mad days when he had 
believed life would not be worth living unless he bested 
young Johnny in the race to marry Jessie Morgan. Then 
he laughed aloud. Jessie! A first job as guide to Miriam 
Page. And after he had laughed aloud, he twisted his 


78 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

long brown hands together in a gesture that was expres¬ 
sive at once of pain and of consternation. Life, so brief 
and his control of its direction so uncertain! He did not 
return at once to his reading, but fell to pacing the floor. 

The days were increasingly difficult. He had lived a 
life of great physical activity for which the pacing of the 
floor of The Lariat was a poor exchange. He had given 
up a star-hung sky for dingy cupids traced on a fly-specked 
ceiling. He had bartered the glory of the plains for books 
in tawdry bindings. Something, some one, must compen¬ 
sate for the loss or he could not endure it. 

Billy Chamberlain, the barber, interrupted his half¬ 
savage meditation. Billy was smooth shaven and thin, 
with a fringe of sandy hair surrounding a shining bald 
spot. His eyes were brown and slightly protuberant. 

‘‘Listen, Hughie,” he said, “I want to look up some¬ 
thing in the dictionary. I’ll never get Pink Morgan out 
of the chair till I do.” 

“What’s the trouble?” asked Hugh, nodding toward 
the shabby Webster beside the cash register. 

“Pink says petrified wood ain’t wood. He sets up to 
know a lot because you're his son-in-law. He and Prin¬ 
cipal Jones has argued for an hour and I’m sick of it. 
A school teacher is always long-winded and Pink is as 
hard to run down as a coyote. And Pink says one of 
those damn birds you shipped out of here last summer 
wasn’t a bird, but a lizard. And I’ve been arguing with 
him about that. Would I find it under bird or lizard?” 

“Under neither.” Hugh’s eyes were twinkling. “Here! 
I think I can find an exact statement in this.” 

He opened a bulletin he had been reading just as Pink, 
one side of his face white with lather stamped in, followed 
by Principal Jones, a tall old man with a shock of white 
hair. 


MIRIAM 


79 

“Am I going to be shaved or ain’t I ?” demanded Pink, 
furiously. 

“Nobody could shave you with your jaw wagging like 
a dog’s tail,” retorted Chamberlain. “I’m over here try¬ 
ing to get some facts to stop it with.” 

“Hughie,” demanded Pink, “wasn’t that last critter you 
brought in before Bookie died a lizard?” 

“It was a prehistoric bird, you fool!” shouted Principal 
Jones in a voice of entire exasperation. 

“Wait a moment, you fellows! Wait a moment!” 
exclaimed Hugh. “I’ll tell you the story of that little 
dinosaur and then you’ll understand what you’re arguing 
about.” 

He leaned against the counter, half turned from the 
door to stare out the window at the air camp into which 
a white-winged plane was settling home. His voice was 
low and curiously persuasive. He was conscious of a keen 
desire to make these old friends of his see the picture as 
he saw it. So great was his concentration that he did not 
heed the glances of interest directed by his three hearers 
toward the door as Miriam Page entered, nor did he note 
their little grins of amusement as she motioned to them 
for silence. 

“In the long ago, old timers,” said Hugh, “there was 
a lake stretching like a sea over these plains, from half-way 
up the Baldies to the peaks of the White Wolves. And 
the reason that we know this is so is because the story of 
it is written imperishably on the walls of the mountains. 
And the hieroglyphics in which the story is written are 
these.” 

One after another he interpreted the familiar landmarks 
about them. Mountains became tropic islands. Mesas 
became crescent sea beaches. The desert turned to un- 


80 THE EXILE OF THE -LARIAT 

canny jungles which thronged with the monsters of a long 
dead world. 

Miriam leaned against the doorpost, her gaze intent on 
the back of Hugh’s head. Billy Chamberlain now and 
again swallowed with his jaws half opened. Principal 
Jones, with head craned forward, blinked and nodded as 
he did whenever a pupil acquitted himself shockingly well. 
Pink breathed heavily through his nose, forgetting to 
watch Miriam. 

“—and that,” Hugh completed his tale, “is how the 
little dinosaur was saved from the ages for France.” 

“Say, Hughie,” said Billy Chamberlain, “it’s a shame 
to waste good thunder like that on stones. Do you know 
you could persuade a hydrophobia skunk to think he was 
a canary bird. It ain’t that you’re such a good talker, 
either. It’s your way.” 

Pink cleared his throat. “Are you ever going to shave 
me, Billy?” 

“Come on! Come on! I hope you can keep your jaw 
quiet, now you’ve been showed up wrong!” 

Hugh turned, smiling as the two belligerents strode 
toward the door, to discover Miriam, her eyes still intent 
upon him. She came slowly toward him. 

“I came to buy,” she said, “and I stayed to—” she hesi¬ 
tated—“I stayed—to beg.” 

Hugh took her outstretched hand, “To beg?” he re¬ 
peated, a little awkwardly. 

“Yes,” said Miriam, “that you would not waste your 
gift.” 

“You mean my work!” exclaimed Hugh, with eager 
satisfaction. “I knew you’d understand.” 

“Not your work. I don’t know much about that as yet. 
Your gift is the priceless gift of personality. Something 


MIRIAM 8r 

vivid and fine that people get quite without your willing 
it to be so.” 

Hugh was feeling more and more collapsed. He looked 
at Miriam with the old expression of baffled weariness. 
Principal Jones cleared his throat. Neither Miriam nor 
Plugh heard him. The old man looked from one to the 
other with keen scrutiny, waited a moment in the unem¬ 
barrassed silence, then, quite unheeded, tip-toed out of the 
shop. 

“Don’t look at me so!” exclaimed Miriam. “I do 
understand you—better than you realize.” 

Hugh shook his head with a little smile. “There is so 
little to understand about me that you’re not compliment- 
ing yourself. You look tired. How did you come in?” 

“On old Lemon Skin. My first long ride. Your wife 
says that a month from now I can ride what she calls a 
real horse.” 

“Jessie is a good judge,” said Hugh, then added, “Did 
she come in with you ?” 

“No. I just started off on my own early this morning 
and—decided to buy new spurs.” 

“I sent my best pair to you this morning by Johnny 
Parnell. He must be over at the station. Have you had 
your dinner?” 

It was not the sort of conversation he had planned with 
Miriam. He looked at her appealingly. She seated her¬ 
self casually in one of the chairs beside the stove. 

“I’ll get some lunch when I’ve cooled down from the 
ride,” she said. “Perhaps you’ll let me rest here.” 

“Perhaps I will,” agreed Hugh, with a smile. 

“Has it been a long two weeks—I mean the weeks of 
shop-keeping?” 

He was astounded to discover how glad he was to see 
her. “It’s been a week of Hades,” he replied, bluntly. 


82 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 


Miriam’s hazel eyes were very bright. “I wonder just 
why?” she murmured. 

There was a silence, broken by the thudding of hoofs 
in sand as a herd of steers was rushed past the window 
by a shouting rider. Hugh moved restlessly. 

“What sort of a time are you having up at the ranch?” 
he asked. 

“Interesting. Mrs. Stewart is doing a good job, even 
if she doesn’t like me.” 

“What makes you think she doesn’t like you?” de¬ 
manded Hugh. 

Miriam shrugged her shoulders and said with a whim¬ 
sical smile, “I don’t mind that if you will like me just 
a little.” 

Hugh’s eyes suddenly widened and contracted. “Me?” 
He drew a quick breath. “Me? But I do like you. Very 
much. More than—” He hesitated, drawing a little 
closer to her. 

“More than what?” she asked gently. 

“More than I want to like a woman again,” he said, 
quietly. 

“I can understand that.” Miriam nodded her head. 

“Can you!” exclaimed Hugh, eagerly. 

“Yes. Marriage had failed you, intellectually. You 
think that all marriage would be that way. So you are 
afraid.” 

“No! Not afraid. I’ve lost my illusions. I’m not 
blaming any one any more than I blame myself. You’ve 
probably been in this neighborhood long enough to learn 
that I’m a failure at most things.” 

“But I know that you’re not a failure. I know that you 
are a big man. And I like you. I like you more than”— 
her eyes were very bright—“more than you perhaps will 
want me to like you!” 


MIRIAM 


83 

“That couldn’t be!” exclaimed Hugh. Then he paused, 
suddenly cognizant of his great loneliness, of his great 
hunger, of the direction in which he was drifting. He 
knew now that in his need he could turn to this woman as 
a thirsting traveler turns to a spring in the desert. 

Miriam, a little flushed, very tender as to lip and eager 
as to eye, laid her hand gently on his. 

“I wonder,” she said softly, “if you have any idea of 
what a dear you are.” 

His warm palm closed on her fingers. “No!” he ex¬ 
claimed. “If I seem to you to be anything but a cold and 
useless fossil digger, for God’s sake tell me so.” 

“My dear, you seem to me, your work seems to me, to 
be too big for the average person to comprehend.” 

“Not me. My work!” said Hugh. 

“Have it your own way! Only let me share both in the 
short time I shall be in the west.” 

“How can I share with you?” asked Hugh, eagerly. 

“Will you let me ask you some questions, first?” 

“Anything you wish!” 

“Let’s begin with the will. Is it really your intention 
not to leave The Lariat except for meals and sleep ?” She 
was smiling now. 

Hugh returned the smile. “I don’t know whether I 
could trust myself as far as the barber shop or not! Why 
do you ask ?” 

“Because understanding about the will will help me to 
understand you! Incidentally, I’m curious! You realize, 
don’t you, that the most people talk of around here is the 
will and the Frontier Days Celebration?” 

Hugh groaned and Miriam laughed. “Are you going 
to be able to stick it?” she asked. “It’s a wonderful 
property!” 

A wonderful property! He then to her was enduring 


84 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

this barren exile that he might own the ranch and the Old 
Sioux Tract. And she had said that she understood him. 

“Look!” he said suddenly, leaning toward her, his face 
flushed beneath its tan. “We can’t go on unless you feel 
as I do about it all.” 

“Tell me how you feel about it,” the smile leaving her 
eyes. 

Hugh rose to lean against the counter and slowly began 
to unpack his heart to her. He told her of his childhood, 
of Bookie, of the slow growth of his feeling toward his 
profession, of his marriage, of Jessie, of Mrs. Morgan. 
He told her of his toil to open up the buried manuscripts 
of unstoried time. And he told her of Bookie’s death. 
And last of all, he told her of his mental struggle over the 
will and what the sacrifice meant to him. 

When he had finished Miriam’s eyes w r ere tear-blinded. 

“It is so difficult to be impartial in judging you,” she 
said, ruefully. “What you are dominates one so that one 
forgets what you ought to be. Why does your wife want 
you to go into politics?” 

“In a frontier state, politics is the most obvious way 
out of primitive living and isolation, into positions of 
power and ease.” 

Miriam nodded. Then she said slowly, “It’s very won¬ 
derful to love one’s work as you do. I’d almost say it was 
the greatest gift the gods can bestow. But such love 
should lead somewhere.” 

“I don’t see why it should lead anywhere but to itself.” 
Hugh was watching Miriam with painful intensity. 

“It ought to lead at least to the world’s sharing more 
in your work, particularly in your interpretation of it. 
I wish so much-” 


“What is it you wish?” asked Hugh, gently. 



MIRIAM 


85 

“I wish I could see you at work. Then Fd understand 
still better.” 

“And you want to understand?” Hugh leaned toward 
her. 

Miriam looked up steadily into his eyes. “I must 
understand!” 

Hugh drew a deep breath and paced the floor for a 
moment. Then he said, “I must and I will keep my word 
to Uncle Bookie. But I can show you where I have 
worked, if you have time and are fairly good at climbing. 
I know you are athletic, but do heights make you dizzy?” 

“No. I’ve done a little climbing in the Alps. Enough 
to prove that.” 

“Oh! Then this will be easy.” He looked at her 
attentively. How lovely, how very lovely she was! All 
the charm that was peculiarly Hugh’s was in his face as 
he took both Miriam’s hands in his. 

“You know, Miriam! You know!” he whispered. 

“Yes!” She looked up into his face and her lips 
quivered. 

Hugh dropped her hands and started slowly toward the 
door, then turned back to say, “I’m going to arrange with 
Pink Morgan to stay in The Lariat till I come back. You 
and I are going to go in the launch up the river to a cave 
I want you to see. I can get you back by dark, but you’d 
better plan to stay at the Indian Massacre tonight.” 

Miriam nodded and Hugh returned shortly with his 
father-in-law, who agreed most willingly to keep shop. 
Any engagement that relieved Pink of his wife and the 
hotel was entirely satisfactory. Miriam’s horse having 
been unsaddled and turned into the corral, the expedition 
started without delay. 

The little launch in which Hugh had done so much 
river prospecting had been lying forlornly behind The 


86 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Lariat since Bookie’s death. Miriam sat beside Hugh, 
intently following his vivid interpretation of the broad 
level floor of the canyon—the crimson, tortured walls of 
the canyon. They left the little town behind, passed the 
excavation which scarred the spot from which Hugh had 
unearthed a huge collection of fossilized bones, passed the 
crude camp of an oil prospector, passed a group of Sioux 
squaws, tramping southward with bundles of babies and 
bead work. 

It was not until they had passed the last trace of 
humanity that Hugh ceased to speak of his work. But 
when the trudging squaws had disappeared, he laid his 
free hand on Miriam’s and said abruptly, “It’s been fear¬ 
fully swift, hasn’t it! I would have laughed had any one 
told me, even two months ago, that it could have come to 
me so. Yet it is right that it should come to us swiftly. 
Life is so short. We have no time to waste.” 

A slow flush showed through the delicate tan of 
Miriam’s cheeks. After a moment, during which her 
lower lip quivered, she answered, “Yes, we have no time 
to waste.” 

“I am very happy,” Hugh said slowly. Then they sat 
in a silence that was unbroken until Hugh brought the 
launch into a pool that lay behind a giant butte. They 
did not disembark at once, but sat for a moment after 
Hugh had snubbed the boat to a convenient boulder, 
contemplating the beauty of the scene. 

The rushing waters, blue as the sky, blue as deep sap¬ 
phire, trembled and roared just beyond the quiet blue pool 
in which the little launch lay motionless. From a massive 
nest of sticks, far, far above, an eagle looked down on the 
quiet figures in the boat. 

“There is Jessie to be considered,” said Miriam, sud¬ 
denly. 


MIRIAM 


\ 



“Yes,” returned Hugh, coolly, “I shall consider her. 
But not today, nor while you are in Wyoming. Jessie 
has had her chance with me for a good many years. She 
never could understand that my work is me. She didn’t 
want to understand. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t love 
me at all.” 

“I believe that Johnny Parnell cares a great deal about 
Jessie, and it seems to me she could easily care about him,” 
suggested Miriam. 

Hugh nodded absently. Jessie had long since ceased to 
trouble or interest any but the outer surface of his exist¬ 
ence. He was gazing now at the new-made trail that 
etched the canyon wall beyond the butte. Miriam’s eyes 
followed his. 

“We made that trail this spring,” said Hugh. “It’s 
very rough, but you can climb it. I’ll tell you about the 
cave to which it leads before we start.” 

He told the story of the finding of the triceratops, 
failing, however, to speak of Jimmie Duncan or old 
Bookie’s connection with the cave. This finished, they 
began the slow ascent. Miriam was breathless when they 
reached the opening. Hugh unfastened the crude door 
with which he had sealed the entrance and seated Miriam 
on a packing case, while he lighted a number of candles 
and placed them at the rear of the cavern which the after¬ 
noon light failed to reach. When he came back to Miriam 
she was staring at the heap of skeletons with unmitigated 
horror. She clutched his arm as he sat down beside her. 

“Hugh! Don’t stir an inch away from me!” she 
gasped. 

He laughed and clasped her fingers firmly. “You little 
goose! Listen to me and I’ll make you feel differently 
about it. First, look at that excavation above the candles, 
while I tell you the story of Red Wolf’s stone devil beast” 


88 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Slowly before Miriam’s fascinated gaze, there appeared 
at the rear of the cave a monster of forgotten time, 
a three-horned brute, with vast, wallowing body and a 
jointed tail that swept dragon-like behind the elephantine 
legs. And above the monster, crouched threateningly in 
mighty herbage, flew dragonflies, huge as the eagle in its 
nest in the butte side, and more horrible, more beautiful. 
Strange cries, strange scents, strange colors, and a lone¬ 
liness more profound than savagery. Miriam suddenly 
glimpsed a vista of earth’s history that was mind shatter¬ 
ing in its immensity. She knew now with appalling 
clarity what Hugh felt when he said that their little lives 
were too short! She knew now what it meant to this man 
to draw the curtain aside from this unending, unthinkable 
vista. She knew now how painfully, with what imper¬ 
ceptible slowness, that curtain must be drawn, what pas¬ 
sion of interest and loyalty that drawing demanded from 
the men who gave their lives to it. And yet she could not 
endure the thought that such imagination, such loyalty, 
such vividness of perception should be given by Hugh to 
so remote a profession. And as she sat beside him, in the 
silence that followed his tale of the triceratops, Miriam’s 
resolve was taken. Neither paleontology nor Jessie were 
to claim him longer. He was to belong to her and to that 
larger place in the world to which his talents and his per¬ 
sonality entitled him. But she was far too clever a woman 
to discuss this thought with Hugh. 

She broke the silence with a little sigh. “I see it, Hugh, 
as I had not seen it before. What enormous labor, my 
dear, what patience, and what fascination! It is wonder¬ 
ful work.” 

Hugh laughed delightedly. “I knew you’d get it! For¬ 
got all about the piffling little Indian massacre at our feet, 
didn’t you?” 


MIRIAM 


89 


“It has no place in your huge canvas,” said Miriam. 

“That’s it!” exclaimed Hugh, rising. “You are shiver¬ 
ing, Miriam. We will get back to the launch. Some 
day”— He paused and, putting his hand beneath her 
chin, he turned her face toward his, “Some day, please 
God, we’ll see some of this work through together; shall 
we not, Miriam?” 

She nodded slowly. 

Hugh drew a long breath. “You can’t imagine,” he 
exclaimed, “what your understanding means to me! It 
makes it possible for me to endure my exile in The 
Lariat.” 

“I don’t believe you are going to find that exile half as 
stupid as you anticipate it will be,” said Miriam. 

“Thanks to you, I won’t!” Hugh laughed and led her 
out to the trail. 

They were in the launch and well out into the river 
when he said, with something of the old wistfulness in 
his eyes, “Well, we’ve snatched one perfect moment from 
eternity, anyhow. The beauty of it ought to hallow that 
old cave long after you and I are forgotten dust.” 

“I’ll be forgotten,” returned Miriam, “but you are never 
going to be if I can help it.” 

“What are you going to do? Have my bones fossil¬ 
ized?” chuckled Hugh. 

Miriam shook her head. It was after a long silence 
that she said, “Hugh, promise me that no matter what 
comes, nothing ever will shake your faith in me and in my 
caring for you. Remember, no matter what is said or 
done, my love for you is a perfect and a holy thing. You 
never must distrust it. Promise me, Hugh.” 

“I promise you, Miriam,” said Hugh, his low voice 
hardly audible above the rushing river. 

It was sunset when they tied to the bank of the river 


9 o THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

behind The Lariat, and Miriam went at once to the Indian 
Massacre. There was still an hour before supper, and 
Pink, relieved of duty in the book store, undertook to 
provide entertainment for this solitary guest. 

“This is the most wonderful country in the world,” 
he said. “But you can’t get these folks in Fort Sioux 
to realize it. They don’t see nothing but mining and 
ranching.” 

“What else could there be here?” asked Miriam, look¬ 
ing up from the ancient magazine she had found on the 
hotel counter. 

“Lots of things. For example, there’s enough water 
power in that river to electrify half of Wyoming. I’ve 
talked it for ten years. Do you suppose I can get any¬ 
body with money to listen to me? No! All they can talk 
is cattle and oil.” 

Pink chewed bitterly for a moment, then the big idea 
of his life flashed into his mind. He got up from his chair 
near the stove and crossed to Miriam, seated before the 
window. 

“Say, I hear,” he began eagerly and confidentially, “that 
you are a banker. That means that you are next to big 
sums of money.” 

“It might mean so,” agreed Miriam cautiously. 

“Folks round here,” Pink went on, “look on me as a 
kind of a camp follower for my wife. She runs this town 
and she runs me. But she hasn’t robbed me of the power 
to think—not yet, I mean. And I’ve got one idea that if 
I can put it over will make me the biggest man in 
Wyoming. And if you’ll help me, we sure can put it 
over.” 

“What’s the idea?” asked Miriam. 

“Just what I’ve told you. Water power. Two or three 
different surveyors at different times have told me that 


MIRIAM 


9 i 

a dam a few miles up the canyon from Fort Sioux would 
be a world wonder for the power it would produce. 
They’d put the dam at the butte where Hughie’s made 
the new trail.” 

Miriam smiled. “Your ideas are rather expensive, » 
aren’t they?” 

“Expensive, yes! Gosh! Think of the bigness of it! 
Why, the waters would back up clean into Hughie’s cave 
and over a lot of the Old Sioux Tract. Turn it into a 
forty-mile lake.” 

“What would Hugh say to that?” exclaimed Miriam. 

Pink laughed. “He’d be as ugly as a wolverine and try 
to fight it. But what could he do? Progress can’t stop 
because the trail happens to cross a burying ground, 
can it?” 

Miriam turned thoughtful eyes from Pink to the 
stove. Finally she said, “Can you tell me the name of 
some accredited engineer who may have gone over this 
ground?” 

“Sure!” with eager astonishment. “George Haskins. 
He used to be in Cheyenne, but now he’s got some kind 
of a big job in Chicago. He went over this ground years 
ago with a pipe dream that didn’t pan out.” 

“If I should attempt to swing such a deal, have I your 
word that you will not mention it to a living soul?” 

“Absolutely!” roared Pink. “Do you actually mean 
that you’re going to consider it?” 

“I might, if it is really feasible.” 

“And where do I come in?” with sudden suspicion. 

“I’d see that you were taken care of, of course.” 

“Hah!” explosively, “looks like I’d have a chance to 
show the Missis I’m a man, after all! Here comes 
Hughie to supper. Poor old bone digger! I sure believe 


92 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

he’d go up and knife the Public Utilities Commission if 
he thought they’d give that charter.” 

“If a big concern got back of the construction of that 
dam, I imagine Hugh would have to get into real politics 
before he could block it,” said Miriam carelessly. 

“The only way he could stop it would be to make him¬ 
self governor of the state!” chuckled Pink. “Hello, 
Hughie! Sold any books since I left?” 

“No, but I’ve loaned the dictionary,” returned Hugh 
with a laughing glance at Miriam, as he followed her into 
the dining room. 


CHAPTER V 


THE MAN GRAFTON 

TV/T IRIAM rode old Lemon Skin back to the ranch the 
^ -*■ next morning and a day later Jessie appeared in 
The Lariat. Hugh was alone. She strode to the rear 
window and stood strongly silhouetted against the light. 

“Hughie,” she said abruptly, “what’s going on between 
you and Miriam Page ?” 

“Have you asked Miriam?” Hugh thrust his cigarette 
away and leaned against the counter. 

“Yes, and she sent me to you.” 

“How did you come to ask her such a question?” asked 
Hugh, white to the lips. 

“Don’t stall with me, Hughie!” exclaimed his wife. 
“I’ve a right to ask you that,” insisted Hugh. 

“I knew when I came into The Lariat the day she ar¬ 
rived in Fort Sioux that I’d interrupted a scene. It was 
thick in the air. And you have a very honest face, besides. 
She has all the earmarks of a person very much in love. 
And so have you. It’s all intangible but unmistakable. 
Yesterday she deliberately started in to tell me what sort 
of a man she thought you to be. And I asked her point 
blank if she was in love with you. She refused to reply. 
Told me to come to you. Here I am.” 

Hugh stood very straight and looked at Jessie squarely. 
“Jessie, you haven’t cared for me for at least five years. 
I want you to give me my freedom.” 

“That’s masculine, putting it over on me! Does that 
mean that you are in love with Miriam Page?” 

93 


94 


THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 


“Yes, Jessie, it does.” 

Jessie, her fine color blanched, did not speak for a long 
time. She leaned heavily against the casement, her lower 
lip caught between her teeth. 

“You are asking too much, Hughie.” 

“It’s not as if you cared. You’ve held me in contempt 
for years. Why mince matters? You’ll be relieved to be 
rid of me, Jessie. Be honest! Give us both our freedom.” 

“I’ll not give it to you, Hugh. Never.” 

“Then I shall take it.” 

“Don’t be silly! She’s not big enough for you, Hughie. 
She’s clever, but not big.” 

“She’s much too big for me.” 

Jessie gave a sardonic laugh; then she said with a sud¬ 
den tragic conviction in her deep voice: “Nobody is big 
enough for you but me, and I’ve wasted my chance. But 
Miriam Page shall not have you while I live.” 

“How are you going to prevent it?” asked Hugh. 

“I don’t know.” 

Hugh, startled by the depth of pain in Jessie’s voice, 
looked at her with unusual attention. There was a new 
expression in her lips. They were no longer indifferent. 

“Jessie,” he repeated, “you know you haven’t cared 
about me for years. Be fair about this and be kind.” 

Jessie stared at him with wide eyes, and repeated, won- 
deringly, “Be fair! Be kind! God in heaven!” and she 
swung out of The Lariat and mounted Magpie without 
stopping to see her mother. 

Hugh, much perturbed, paced the floor. He had a sud¬ 
den sense of sadness for Jessie. But after all, he felt that 
cold justice was on his side. Jessie had never been a wife 
to him in any full sense of the word. It was not fair of 
her now to be resentful and vindictive. He was glad that 
afternoon to take a long ride with Miriam and recover his 


THE MAN GRAFTON 


95 

sense of sureness. Miriam was more fascinating at this 
period than poor Jessie ever had dreamed of being. She 
was in love for the only time in her life, in love with all 
the ardor of a highly trained, primitively passionate mind. 
Small wonder that the hours passed with her drugged 
Hugh with happiness. 

The days of Miriam’s vacation passed all too quickly. 
She was obliged to return to Boston early in June. Her 
actual leaving was prosaic enough, as most leavings are. 
She spent the night before her departure at the Indian 
Massacre. Hugh met her at the rickety porch and carried 
her suitcase over to the station, and looked up into her 
face for a long, hungry moment as she stood on the ob¬ 
servation platform of the train. Then he replaced his hat 
and turned away, for he could bear no more. 

He needed now, as never before, to turn to his work. 
The Lariat was haunted by memories of Miriam, and the 
hours, which now bore no hope of seeing her, hung doubly 
heavy on his hands. As if to add to his discomfort, Fred, 
as the summer dragged on, reported findings on the Old 
Sioux Tract that confirmed Hugh’s conviction that here 
was one of the greatest fossil fields ever discovered. He 
chafed and fumed and wrote long letters to Miriam, and 
the days passed, as such days will. In mid-summer a 
group of young Cheyenne cub engineers did some survey 
work up the river, the perennial search for a dam site that 
always so hugely amused the citizens of Fort Sioux. It 
was the tenth survey, Billy Chamberlain said, that had 
been made in six years. 

In the early fall the convention of women’s clubs was 
held in Fort Sioux, and Mrs. Morgan was elected presi¬ 
dent of the State Federation, to the immense amusement 
and pride of the town. Mrs. Morgan always had been 
looked upon with antagonism and determined contempt 


96 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

by the men of Fort Sioux. But now, after all, she was 
the acknowledged leader of the women of the State, each 
of these women the possessor of a perfectly good vote. 
There might be more to Mrs. Morgan than the men had 
been realizing, and the ban of contempt might well be lifted 
as adroitly as possible. At least, this was the idea ex¬ 
pressed by Principal Jones one evening in The Lariat. He 
and Hugh were smoking while Chamberlain, Fred Allward 
and Pink Morgan chewed. 

“Come across now, Pink!” said the barber. “Ain’t you 
proud of the Missis? She sure has done more for Fort 
Sioux than you’ll ever do!” 

Pink jerked his shoulders. “Ain’t it queer,” he grunted, 
“that nobody can’t pay my wife a compliment without 
twisting it round so as to insult me. But you folks wait! 
Something is going to break in this neighborhood before 
long that’ll make all you folks begin to say, T knew him 
when—’ about me.” 

“What’s the general nature of the event, Pink?” asked 
Hugh. “How’ll we recognize it?” 

“I guess you’ll recognize it when you see me starting 
the finest horse ranch in the West with the profits. And 
do you know what I’m going to do with that all-hecked 
Indian Massacre? I’m going to pour a barrel of oil on it 
and burn it up. And never try to collect the insurance, 
either.” 

“You’ll give the Missis notice so she can get out, I hope, 
Pink,” suggested Fred Allward. 

“Well—I never burned a woman up—yet,” snorted 
Pink. “Keep on sniggering, folks! You’ll talk different 
to me before long.” 

It was on a glorious day in early September that Charles 
C. Grafton registered at the Indian Massacre. He was a 
man of late middle age, small as to build, with a good- 


THE MAN GRAFTON 


97 

looking, smooth-shaven, round face from which peered 
out a pair of remarkably keen gray eyes. He arrived at 
noon, met Hugh at dinner, and followed him back to The 
Lariat. They smoked together for some time, with a 
mutual sense of liking, Grafton asking casual questions 
about the town and its environs. They were interrupted 
by Fred All ward, who slumped into a chair and said, 
'‘Doggone it, Hughie, that Creetashus, as you call it, up 
there on the Old Sioux Tract is simply lousy with bones. 
Can’t you salve your conscience enough just to ride up 
there once and let me show you something?’’ 

“What have you turned up now, Fred?” asked Hugh, 
eagerly. 

“The damnedest looking bird you ever heard of or 
seen. Must be twenty-five feet long. Got a bill like a 
duck, I swear he has. No sight for a drinking man, 
Hughie!” 

“What kind of prospecting is this?” exclaimed Grafton 
with a laugh. 

Fred favored the newcomer with a cool glance. “Well, 
stranger,” he replied, “I’ll swap you sight unseen. You 
tell me what your kind of prospecting is and I’ll explain 
mine to you.” 

“Right you are, old chap,” agreed Grafton. “I’m out 
here to make plans for the building of a dam at Thumb 
Butte. I’m sort of a cross between an engineer and a real 
estate man.” 

“The hell you are!” said Fred slowly. 

Hugh, who had been leaning against the counter, 
straightened his long legs suddenly. “You say to ‘make 
plans’? Just how much does that mean, if you please, 
Mr. Grafton?” 

“Well,” replied Grafton, slowly, “it means that the 
Eastern Electric Corporation of Chicago will begin next 


98 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

spring on a three-million-dollar water-power project at 
Fort Sioux. We have control of all the land necessary 
except such portions of the Old Sioux Tract as will be 
flooded. That’s what I wanted to see you about.” 

“Has your company a charter for building the dam?” 
asked Hugh, stiffly. 

“That’s pending in Cheyenne now. There’s no doubt 
but what we’ll get it. A mere matter of form. Great 
thing for Fort Sioux, isn’t it?” 

Neither Hugh nor Fred spoke for a moment, then 
Hugh asked another question. 

“What is this Eastern Electric Corporation?” 

“A Chicago concern organized to swing big deals like 
this. Backed by plenty of money.” 

Silence again with only the rush of the river beneath 
the window. Then Fred asked a question. 

“How’d you get control of the land you wanted?” 

“Your fellow townsman, Mr. Morgan, got the options 
on that, this summer. What’s the trouble? I supposed 
you’d be wild with delight out here.” 

“The thing can’t go on,” said Hugh, tersely. 

Grafton’s face showed honest surprise. “And why 
not?” 

“Because I won’t allow it. I’ll block it by refusing to 
part with any of the Old Sioux Tract.” 

“Of course, it could be condemned,” suggested Grafton. 
“But we mustn’t let it come to that. Look here, Mr. Stew¬ 
art, I liked you on sight. Suppose you tell me why you’re 
receiving the news this way.” 

Hugh walked to the rear window, twisted his long, 
sinewy hands together, returned to his position against 
the counter and lighted a cigarette. 

“There’s nothing personal in my attitude, Mr. Grafton. 


THE MAN GRAFTON 


99 

I can put it to you in a few words. I’m a paleontologist. 
The Old Sioux Tract is one of the greatest fossil fields 
of history. It cannot be flooded.” 

“Ah! I understand! But only about half of the tract 
would be covered by the water, Mr. Stewart.” 

“But unfortunately, that half is the invaluable portion. 
I cannot let the plans go on, Mr. Grafton.” 

Fred chewed rapidly and swallowed convulsively. Graf¬ 
ton studied Hugh’s face with concentrated interest. 
Hugh’s long jaw, now white beneath the ears, did not 
escape his observation. 

“But, my dear chap, you can’t believe that we could 
consider seriously giving up such a project as this, for 
the sake of museum specimens, however rare they might 
be l” 

“I don’t think you’d consider it voluntarily, no! I’m 
merely warning you that I shall force you to do so,” re¬ 
plied Hugh. 

“But how? Have you private means, Mr. Stewart?” 

“I don’t know how I shall fight it,” said Hugh, miser¬ 
ably but none the less sternly. “I shall use whatever 
property I have, if that becomes necessary.” 

“I’ll put my little old Arizona turquoise prospect in,” 
said Fred suddenly. “And I’ll volunteer to shoot the first 
surveyor that puts foot on the Old Sioux Tract.” 

Grafton laughed. “Good lord, friends, this isn’t fron¬ 
tier days!” 

“You’ll think it’s a Sioux outbreak before me and 
Hughie gets through fighting.” Fred was grinning, but 
there was no humor in his eyes. 

“Well! Well!” exclaimed Grafton. “I had no idea 
I’d run up against a snag like this. I wonder who else in 
the town is going to receive me at the point of a gun.” 

“No one,” Hugh’s low voice was bitter. “Fred and I 


100 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

will fight alone. The rest of Fort Sioux will receive you 
with a kiss.” 

“Good! Now listen, old man! Remember, we’ve agreed 
there is to be nothing personal in this.” 

“If I agreed to that I was a fool,” said Hugh. “You 
are planning to blot out an invaluable record of time— 
unearthing and preserving such records is my life work. 
It’s going to be a very personal fight with me.” 

“O in that way, yes! I understand,” said Grafton. 
“But,” here he rose and shook hands with Hugh, “I like 
you, just the same.” 

“I’m afraid you may not feel the same way when I’m 
through,” returned Hugh with a twisted smile. 

“Yes, I shall!” Grafton’s voice was sincere and a little 
amused. He lighted a fresh cigarette, nodded at Fred, 
and left the book shop. 

Hugh and Fred stared at each other. Fred cleared his 
throat. “He ain’t a false alarm. It’s a real fire this time, 
Hughie.” 

“What the devil can I do, Fred? I bluffed as hard as I 
could, but I honestly don’t know which way to turn.” 

“If Bookie was here now,” groaned Fred, “he’d know 
exactly who to see and what wires to pull.” 

Hugh bit his lip, thoughtfully. He himself knew not 
a moneyed man nor a politician of weight in the state. 
“Flow could I possibly have foreseen,” he exclaimed, ir¬ 
ritably, “that I’d ever have to fight this kind of a thing?” 

“How about these geology friends of yours down east 
and everywhere?” asked Fred. 

“I’ll write them at once. But they’re all poor, of 
course.” 

“Well, there’s your Miss Page. She’s in a bank. Make 
her get you some money. By the jumping heck, a woman 
ought to do a man a little real good once in a while!” 


THE MAN GRAFTON 


IOI 


“If you think I’d get money from a woman, Fred, you 
don’t know me, that’s all. But I will write her for advice.” 

“Advice, hell! What you want is enough money to 
go up to Cheyenne and buy the Public Utilities Commis¬ 
sion with. Come down to earth, Hughie!” 

“You talk like a crook, Fred. If I didn’t know you 
were so blamed honest you bend backward, I’d throw you 
out the rear window.” Hugh was smiling but his voice 
was deeply troubled. 

“I never had no good reason for not being honest till 
now,” ejaculated Fred. “Well, I’ll go over and see what 
Billy Chamberlain has to say about this. You don’t want 
I should keep my mouth shut, do you?” 

Hugh shook his head and Fred departed, almost at a 
run, for the barber shop. 

Within two hours the entire town was buzzing with 
excitement. The Lariat sold more books, most of them 
second hand, to be sure, than on any previous day in its 
history—the necessity for making the purchase was deeply 
deplored by those who had actually decided to take the 
drastic step, but, as a matter of fact, while Fort Sioux 
maintained the same amused and contemptuous attitude 
toward Hugh’s work that it did toward Mrs. Morgan’s, 
there were not half a dozen persons in the town who pos¬ 
sessed the courage to walk into The Lariat, apropos of 
nothing, and inquire into Hugh’s personal affairs. So even 
those who already owned several books cast discretion to 
the winds and paid actual money into the cash register that 
never in all Bookie’s lonely days had rung so frequently 
and so gayly. 

Hugh was outwardly quite serene, and not a single pur¬ 
chaser of a book felt repaid for his or her extravagance. 

“Yes, I think I’ll have to refuse to sell the Old Sioux 
Tract,” was his invariable formula. “Yes, I’ll fight them 


102 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

the best I know how. No, I wouldn’t want to ask Miss 
Page for money.” This, always accompanied by his 
twisted and appealing smile, took the sting out of the pur¬ 
chaser’s disappointment but left him or her none the less 
empty of gossip. 

Hugh, in fact, as the afternoon wore on, was torn more 
and more between anger and despair. It was very evident 
that Fort Sioux considered him a fool and, like Grafton, 
had not the slightest intention of taking his declaration of 
war seriously. This latter attitude had the wholesome 
effect finally of submerging his despair in a sense of bitter 
protest against Fort Sioux’s stupidity and lack of loyalty, 
and when he went to supper he was in a fighting mood. 

Pink, Grafton and Mrs. Morgan were at the table when 
Hugh sat down. He evidently had been under discussion, 
and a silence fell while he served himself from the general 
platter. It was Mrs. Morgan, who had not volunteered a 
remark to Hugh for many months, who spoke first. 

“Well, Hughie, how are you going to meet this 
trouble?” 

“I guess I can meet it standing,” replied Hugh. 

“Why in thunder should you fight it?” demanded Pink. 
“My God, here’s the whole of Wyoming waiting for 
power, and you think you can throw a few rotten stone 
birds in the wheels and stop it. I always liked you, 
Hughie, and I’ve stood with you against the women, but 
here’s where we part company if you’re going to make 
this kind of a fool of yourself.” 

“Just how do you come in on this, Pink?” asked Hugh, 
his low voice quickened with anger. 

“That’s all right. You nor nobody else’ll ever know 
how I horned in. But I’m in, hoof to horns. I’ve been 
‘Mrs. Morgan’s husband’ in this man’s town as long as 
I’ll ever be. You’ve been howling for ten years about your 


THE MAN GRAFTON 


103 

work and how nobody dassent stop it. Well, this is my 
work and they ain’t anybody in Wyoming big enough to 
stop that dam being put up.” 

Hugh shrugged his shoulders. Grafton’s keen gaze did 
not leave Hugh’s face for some moments. He had listened 
all the afternoon to humorous comments from the town on 
the subject of Hugh’s idiocy in regard to stone birds, but 
Grafton knew faces. And he knew that while Hugh’s 
broad forehead and eyes, set deeply and far apart, were 
the eyes of a dreamer, his jaw was the jaw of a man who 
once roused would never stop. It was evident to Grafton 
that the Eastern Electric Corporation had put a harsh 
hand on Hugh’s one sensitive side, on the one thing in life 
that could give his long jaw just the set it wore now. 
And while he was not at all uneasy, Grafton thought it 
quite necessary that Hugh be pacified. In order to do this, 
he proposed to understand more clearly Hugh’s angle on 
paleontology. 

“You took your training in geology at the State Uni¬ 
versity?” he asked, genially. 

“Yes,” replied Hugh, taking a second cup of coffee from 
his mother-in-law, whose eyes never had been more ob¬ 
serving. 

“Mighty interesting work. My experience as an engi¬ 
neer makes me appreciate it. I’m a University of Chicago 
man myself. I remember that when I was a cub we ran 
on some interesting fossil remains in the Red River coun¬ 
try. But folks didn’t know as much about dinosaurs in 
those days as they do now. It’s got to be quite an art to 
unbed the specimens, hasn’t it?” 

“Yes,” replied Hugh. 

“How do you go about it ?” asked Grafton. 

“There’s some information about that in a pamphlet I 


104 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

can loan you,” said Hugh, “if you care to study the 
matter.” 

“Thanks. I’ll be over to get it. Who wrote it?” 

“I did,” answered Hugh. 

“I didn’t know you ever had anything published, 
Hughie!” exclaimed Mrs. Morgan. 

“You didn’t want to know if it concerned fossils, did 
you?” asked Hugh. 

“Doggone it, Stewart!” cried Grafton suddenly, “I 
don’t want to be classed with the rest of these boneheads 
out here that can’t appreciate your work. But what can 
I do? You know well enough that your position is foolish. 
Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, are full of fossils.” 

“The Sioux Tract,” said Hugh, “will, in my judgment, 
open up a hitherto unknown era to us. I can’t afford to 
gamble on what other fields may produce.” 

“Well, doggone it, get the fossils out of there before 
we begin, then,” cried Grafton. 

“Give me fifty to a hundred years and unlimited money 
and I’ll do what I can,” agreed Hugh. 

Grafton groaned comically and subsided. Mrs. Morgan 
darted in quickly. 

“I, for one, don’t like to be classed as a bonehead, Mr. 
Grafton.” 

“Sorry, madam, but I’m going to say flatly that this 
whole town is boneheaded about your son-in-law. Dog¬ 
gone it, he’s the only thing that gives this section of Wy¬ 
oming any claim to be on the map.” 

“I’ve never belittled Hughie,” asserted Mrs. Morgan. 
“On the contrary, the reason he doesn’t like me is because 
I’ve always said he had the makings of a big man in him 
and was throwing himself away on fossils.” 

“You evidently don’t understand what he’s been doing, 
Mrs. Morgan,” said Grafton. 


THE MAN GRAFTON 


105 

Hugh crushed his paper napkin, excused himself and 
returned to The Lariat. He locked the door, and sitting 
down at Bookie’s battered old desk, he wrote the day’s 
story to Miriam. He was sealing the envelope when some 
one knocked vigorously. He dropped the letter and opened 
the door. It was Mrs. Morgan. 

“I’d like to come in and talk to you, Hughie,” she said 
with an unwonted tentative note in her voice. 

Hugh did not move aside for her to enter. “Not about 
Jessie,” his voice holding a warning. 

“Not about Jessie,” she agreed. “About an idea I have 
concerning the Old Sioux Tract.” 

Hugh slowly swung the door wide, and after locking 
it again, seated himself opposite his mother-in-law. She 
did not look her years, in the lamp light. She wore a neat 
dark linen suit and her slender figure was as alert in the 
chair as a child’s. Her dark eyes were brilliant. Hugh, 
wrapped in his anxiety and his usual antagonism to her, 
did not notice that her throat was quivering as if the 
moment held great potentialities for her of hope or fear 
or both. 

“When I say that I’m not going to talk to you about 
Jessie, Hughie, I mean it,” she said. “But that does not 
mean that I’m not half heart-broken over the mess you 
and she are making of things. But you’ll have to work it 
out, both of you, your own way. Now—don’t jerk away. 
It’s bad manners, if it’s nothing else. Hugh, what do you 
know about state politics?” 

“Nothing,” answered Hugh, “and frankly, I’m realizing 
for the first time that Uncle Bookie had a better idea of 
using The Lariat than I realized.” 

Mrs. Morgan nodded. “I hoped you’d come to it. This 
state, Hughie, is in a queer condition. Theoretically, of 
course, there isn’t such a thing as the woman’s vote, out 


106 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

here. As a matter of fact, the men are doing their un¬ 
conscious best to form one by their attitude toward the 
Children’s Code Bill the federation was lobbying for all 
last winter. When the legislature killed that bill they gave 
birth to a woman’s party. It won’t be good politics to try 
to bring the Children’s Code up for another year or two. 
And the person that jumps in now, with something for the 
women to focus their bitterness on and fight for, will have 
a force behind them that the men will find hard to beat. 
Hugh, I want you to let the women of Wyoming help you 
to fight for the Old Sioux Tract.” 

Hugh looked at his mother-in-law suspiciously. 
‘‘What’s back of it, Mrs. Morgan? You know as well as 
I do that the women aren’t going to substitute my ‘damned 
stone birds’ for children.” 

“If you’ll agree,” said Mrs. Morgan, carefully, “to get 
out and tell the women’s clubs and church organizations 
what the Old Sioux Tract means to you and the world; 
if you’ll do it under my guidance and as intensively as I 
direct, the Public Service Commission won’t grant that 
charter.” 

“And you will have launched me in state politics!” ex¬ 
claimed Hugh. “Mrs. Morgan, you are a clever woman.” 

“Not clever enough to have shown my daughter how to 
save her marriage,” returned Mrs. Morgan, quickly, a sud¬ 
den moisture in the brightness of her eyes, as she watched 
Hugh’s tense face. 

“You agreed not to bring up that matter,” protested 
Hugh. 

“And yet, I have every right in the world to speak to you 
about it, Hugh,” insisted his mother-in-law. “I can’t get 
rid of the feeling that with all your boasting about loving 
the truth, you are very unfair to me. You are wrecking 
my daughter’s life. You won’t let me utter a protest.” 


THE MAN GRAFTON 107 

Hugh looked at her clearly. “Mrs. Morgan, you know 
Jessie doesn’t care for me.” 

“I don’t know anything of the kind. I never did under¬ 
stand her. Anyhow, caring has very little to do with mar¬ 
ried life. If only the people who loved each other stayed 
married, about one marriage in a hundred would survive.” 

“Good Lord!” ejaculated Hugh. “Even I am not as dis¬ 
illusioned as that.” 

“You’re not as old as I. Pshaw! Why, you know that 
Pink and I don’t care a straw about each other! We stay 
together simply because I think it’s right. And I cer¬ 
tainly don’t think you have any right to cast Jessie off. 
She doesn’t deserve it. And a divorce is an awful thing, 
any way you put it.” 

“A divorce is a clean, surgical cut that heals a mistake,” 
replied Hugh. “A person as lacking in sentiment as you, 
certainly should see that even about her own daughter.” 

“Ah, but this is not a mistake!” exclaimed his mother- 
in-law. “It’s only lack of adjustment. However, I’ve 
said my say. You’ve been unexpectedly patient with me 
and I’ll try not to interfere again. What is your answer 
to my political proposition, Hugh?” 

“How can there be but one answer?” asked Hugh, 
bitterly. “But when I enter the fight, Mrs. Morgan, I 
warn you that I shall show no quarter to family or to any 
other human being whom I discover is trying to block or 
manipulate me.” 

“I hope you’ll live up to that warning, Hughie,” said 
his mother-in-law, enigmatically. “The first thing we are 
going to do, Hugh, is to take on that airplane the govern¬ 
ment is giving up.” 

“What has an airplane got to do with this fight?” de¬ 
manded Hugh. “Don’t try to make a circus of me, Mrs. 
Morgan!” 


108 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

The little woman sat forward in her favorite attitude 
on the edge of her chair. “Let’s settle this matter. Do 
you understand politics, Hughie?” 

“No, I don’t.” 

“Hughie, I began life at twelve washing dishes on the 
Clover Bar ranch. I’m now the leading woman citizen of 
Wyoming. I did it by having a natural instinct for play¬ 
ing politics.” 

“I suppose you did,” admitted Hugh, reluctant admira¬ 
tion in his voice. 

“Then we’re that far along!” Mrs. Morgan nodded. 
“Now, Hughie, if you will just agree to put yourself en¬ 
tirely in my hands, we’ll save the Old Sioux Tract.” 

“I’ll play the game you’ve outlined, but I shall insist on 
discussing details with you. Hanged if I’ll stand for cheap 
methods.” 

Mrs. Morgan studied first Hugh’s face, then the stove, 
then her own capable hands. After a moment of this she 
darted a quick glance again at her son-in-law. 

“Very well, Hughie. The airplane, because it is very 
modern and really efficient and expeditious. I want you 
to buy it. You can get it for the price of a jitney, I am 
told. If you haven’t the cash, Jessie will buy it.” 

“Jessie?” queried Hugh in astonishment. 

“Yes, Jessie. Old Auntie Gretchen has died at last, 
and she left Jessie quite a sum of money. I promised 
Jessie I wouldn’t say how much.” 

“I’m mighty glad for Jessie,” said Hugh, heartily; “but 
I want it understood that Jess isn’t to contribute one cent 
to this campaign.” 

“Why not?” demanded Mrs. Morgan. 

“All these years,” the old bitterness was in Hugh’s 
voice, “Jessie has refused to help me. It’s too late now.” 


THE MAN GRAFTON 


109 

“My heavens!” exclaimed his mother-in-law, “what a 
fool you are! Will you buy it yourself ?” 

Hugh took a thoughtful turn up and down the room. 
“I have a few thousand dollars in the bank at Cheyenne. 
I will place this at your disposal if you think it best. I 
have complete confidence in your acumen as far as man¬ 
aging such a fund is concerned.” 

Mrs. Morgan flushed, but said quietly: “Thank you, 
Hughie. Now, then, the first thing is to call a meeting of 
the Conservation Committee of the State Federation. 
After that, we’ll have a session of the Committee of wom¬ 
en who handled the Children’s Code. We’ll pay the car¬ 
fares. We’ll hold the meetings here in The Lariat. It 
has a lot of Bookie in it and is getting a lot of you,” glanc¬ 
ing quickly at the fossil specimens that now packed the 
empty book shelves. “Women feel atmosphere much 
quicker than men.” She rose, head in air. “This is the 
biggest evening’s work of my life, Hughie. Good night.” 

Hugh looked at her half humorously, half puzzled. 
“Good night!” he said, with a one-sided smile. 


J 


CHAPTER VI 

MRS. ELLIS 

S EVERAL days were consumed in gathering together 
the members of the Conservation Committee. During 
this time, Hugh, at Mrs. Morgan’s suggestion, outlined in 
his mind the stories which he wished to tell the committees, 
but also at her suggestion, he said little to Grafton or to 
the old guard which suddenly ceased to hold sessions in 
The Lariat. It was the first concrete intimation to Hugh 
that the town was lining itself up against him. 

A day or so after his conversation with Mrs. Morgan, 
Jessie rode down from the ranch, which was closing up 
the dude end of its business for the season. It was eve¬ 
ning when she tied Magpie in front of The Lariat and 
walked slowly into the store. Hugh looked up from his 
note-book. His ideas of beauty were of late entirely 
biased by his intense admiration for Miriam’s delicate 
charm. But in spite of his deep preoccupation, he was 
conscious of a reluctant admiration for something in 
Jessie he never before had sensed. 

She was wearing corduroy riding breeches and—the 
fall nights were cold—a heavy, soft riding coat of white 
cheviot. She was bare-headed and, in spite of the frost, 
her flannel blouse was open at the throat. She swung with 
her easy, deliberate stride, the length of the store, without 
greeting Hugh and stood looking out at the brilliant moon¬ 
light on the river. There was in her manner, in the set 
of her broad shoulders, the swing of her slender thighs, a 
forcefulness and a grace that made Hugh think of a moun- 

no 


MRS. ELLIS 


hi 


tain lion he once had watched striding up to a hidden 
spring for a drink. Jessie the lazy, Jessie the indifferent, 
was showing a purposeful strength that was not the less 
apparent for its grace. Hugh’s little thrill of admiration 
was followed by a sudden added tensity of nerves. After 
all, Jessie was a force and evidently rather a tremendous 
one. He was then not to be allowed freedom in the enjoy¬ 
ment of his love any more than he was to be allowed to 
pursue his profession in peace. Very well; his jaw set¬ 
ting. He would fight for both. 

Jessie turned finally. “Hughie,” she said, “I suppose 
you won’t believe me when I say that I’m sorry they are 
heckling you about the Old Sioux Tract.” 

“Yes, I believe you,” replied Hugh, “but I must admit 
that I’m not particularly moved by your sorrow. You 
never came across until another woman showed you your 
mistake.” 

“I know it,” answered Jessie, with unprecedented hum¬ 
bleness ; then she added, bitterly, “though you never 
showed the side to me you showed to her. However, 
I didn’t come to discuss that. I want to help in your 
campaign.” 

“No!” cried Hugh. “If you think it’s possible for me 
to forget, even now, the suffering your sneers about my 
work have cost me, you’re more stupid than I think you 
are. 

“But you are taking help from my mother.” 

“Oh, she! Why, she’s only a woman to me! Never 
has been anything more. But you were my wife. And 
at first, I loved you madly.” 

Jessie’s eyes darkened, but she did not speak for a long 
moment. Then she murmured, “So I am not to help?” 

“No,” repeated Hugh, still bitterly, “you are not to 
help.” 


112 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 


“And what is Miriam doing?” asked Jessie. 

“She can do nothing, of course, but advise and sym¬ 
pathize.” 

“And when, Hughie, do you plan to begin the fight for 
your divorce?” 

“It would be a fight, would it, Jessie?” 

“Yes.” 

“You know I wouldn’t fight a woman for freedom, 
don’t you? You are deliberately planning to torture me.” 

Jessie uttered a long and curious laugh, which was 
interrupted by the entrance of Fred All ward. He greeted 
Jessie, and turned to Hugh. 

“Now look at here, Hughie! If you think I can outfit 
and stay up on the Tract while you are putting up this 
fight, you’re mistaken. You let me go up to Cheyenne 
and tell that Utilities Commission what I think of ’em. 
I just ain’t going to hunt fossils for a while.” 

Fred spat into the stove with a finality of gesture that 
brooked no argument. Hugh lighted a cigarette and man¬ 
aged at the same time to smile one-sidedly. 

“Very well, Fred. Mrs. Morgan is my campaign man¬ 
ager. You go over and get some orders from her.” 

Fred swallowed his entire quid, choked, blinked and 
roared. “Who? Me? Orders from Mrs. Morgan? 
You are plum loco. Why, I wouldn’t take orders from 
that woman to save my life.” 

“She’s my mother, Fred,” said Jessie, in her lazy voice, 
that now carried an edge. 

“And it isn’t to save your life, old timer,” added Hugh. 
“It’s to save the Tract.” 

“To save the Tract! You mean to say you’re trusting 
her to do that? Now, I am going up to Cheyenne. Why, 
you poor maverick, you, that woman made a failure of 
her own husband and her own daughter! And she darn 


MRS. ELLIS 


113 

near made a failure of you. How do you expect her to 
run a fight like this ?” 

“Nevertheless, Fred,” said Hugh, firmly, “she’s made 
a wonderful success of herself in politics, and in that one 
thing I’ve entire confidence in her. You go on over there 
to the Indian Massacre and tell her I want her to explain 
our plans to you and that she’s to use you.” 

Fred stood stiffly before Hugh, rumpling his gray 
beard fiercely. It was quite obvious that Hugh was asking 
the ultimate sacrifice of him. 

“I ain’t never taken orders from a woman in all my 
life, not even my mother after I was big enough to run 
away. That’s the secret of my success. And Mrs. Mor¬ 
gan always did get my goat. That perky, smarty, new 
kind of a woman ! And she can’t see a joke.” 

“You don’t have to disparage her before Jessie, do you, 
Fred?” asked Hugh. 

Fred apparently did not hear the question. “I don’t like 
the way she’s acted to you or Pink. I don’t like it. But 
if you want me to go take orders from her, I’ll go. But 
it’s clearly understood, I’m doing it for you and you 
only.” 

He turned stiffly and marched toward the door, running 
blindly into Johnny Parnell, giving no heed to Johnny’s 
badinage, and slamming the door after himself. 

“O here you are, Jessie!” exclaimed Johnny, turning 
from staring after Fred. “Are you ready to start back 
for the ranch?” 

Jessie, who all this time had been standing by the 
window, now looking out at the moonlit river, now study¬ 
ing Hugh’s head against the lamp light, buttoned her coat 
and came slowly forward. 

“All ready, Johnny!” 

“Just a minute, Jess! What’s all this about you and 


11 4 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Mrs. Morgan planning to throw and hog-tie the Eastern 
Electric Corporation, Hughie? Are you honestly going 
to try to fight?” 

“Yes, I am, Johnny. Are you with me or against me?” 

For once, the young rider’s face was entirely serious. 
He looked from Jessie, now revealed in the full flare of 
the lamp glow, to Hugh, half turned from the desk. 

“Hughie,” he said, “you and I might as well know how 
we stand. You and Jess both know how I feel about her. 
And I’ve always admired and liked you, Hughie. But 
since Miriam Page came out here, I tell you, my blood’s 
been boiling steadily. Not that I don’t wish the two of 
you would get a divorce and let me have a new chance to 
win Jessie. But to see you, Hughie, neglect a woman like 
Jessie, no matter what the circumstances are, makes me 
want to shoot you.” 

“Do you mean to tell me,” insisted Hugh, “that after 
all our years of friendship, you are going to break away 
from me because I’ve been honest about Jessie and me?” 

“I’m going to do more than break away from you,” 
answered Johnny. “As long as you take the attitude you 
do about Jessie, I’m going to work against you.” 

“No, you aren’t, Johnny!” declared Jessie. “I’ll not 
stand for it.” 

“O I’m not afraid of anything Johnny can do to me.” 
Hugh lifted his chin. “I’m glad to know where he stands. 
But I think I ought to warn him that if I find I need him, 
I’ll whip him into line without compunctions.” 

“Whip me into line!” cried Johnny angrily. “What 
gives you the idea that you can do that?” 

“I’ve known you for thirty years. We were babies 
together. Before this war is over, I’ll have the men I need 
behind me.” Hugh spoke as if conscious of a power he 
never before had felt. 


MRS. ELLIS 


IJ S 

Johnny’s face was purple. “We’ll see! We’ll see! 
And in the meantime, I warn you that if I can break up 
you and Miriam Page, I’m going to do it. Not because 
I’m such a moral guy! But because there’s no chance of 
my getting Jessie, and I care enough about her to want her 
to have what she wants. Even if it’s a bloodless fossil 
like you.” 

“I think this interview is about at an end, Johnny,” 
said Hugh, quietly. 

“Then you and I agree on one point,” shouted the 
cowman, pulling on his gloves. 

“Hughie hasn’t neglected me, Johnny,” said Jessie, 
suddenly. “At least all that has been mutual and more 
or less agreed upon.” 

“Then why do you look the way you do?” demanded 
Johnny, sternly. “I got a right to know. Do you still 
love him ?” 

Both men watched Jessie keenly. She turned a little 
pale, but shrugged her shoulders as she answered indiffer¬ 
ently, “Yes.” 

Hugh jumped abruptly to his feet. “Wait a moment! 
I can’t be silent while you two put me in the wrong. I put 
in years trying to make Jessie a part of my life and she 
wouldn’t have it. And I’ve been perfectly open and honest 
with her about everything.” 

“Yes, you have, Hughie!” Jessie’s eyes were deep and 
tragic, but her tone was carefully indolent. “I’ve been a 
fool and I’m paying for it. But, as I’ve told you before, 
I’m going to do my very best to keep you from throwing 
yourself away on a woman who isn’t big enough for you.” 

“Big enough!” snorted Johnny, bitterly. “Big enough! 
What’s the idea? Bookie was a big man, but I never 
could get this stuff about Hughie’s throwing himself 
away, because he was too big for fossils. A man that ain’t 


n6 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

strong enough to put himself where he belongs in the 
world, ain’t big, and that’s all there is about it.” 

“Good heavens!” ejaculated Hugh, “forget it!— So 
you are against me too in this fight, Johnny?” 

“Yes, I am,” replied the young rider, shortly. “I’ve 
gotta be. Come on, Jessie. It will be after midnight 
when we get home,” and the two left The Lariat in silence. 

Hugh paced the floor for a time. He was resentful, 
puzzled, angry and determined as he never before had 
been. And lonely. After all his years in Fort Sioux, 
the town, to his last boyhood friend, was against him. 

Ever since Bookie’s death, Hugh had missed him 
poignantly and sincerely, but now the aching desire to turn 
to the wise old man in his trouble was almost unendurable. 
And, desiring Bookie so, he was suddenly impelled to read 
for the first time the old man’s will. The copy of it had 
lain in the bottom of the cash register ever since Judge 
Proctor had sent it to him. He spread it out on the desk 
and perused it several times. Then he replaced it, lighted 
his pipe and sat thoughtfully before the stove. He had 
been obeying the terms of the will as a discharge of a part 
of his deep indebtedness to his Uncle Bookie. And now 
he wondered if perchance he were not instead adding to 
his indebtedness. Anyhow, was it not possible that the 
two years in The Lariat were to teach him how to protect 
his work from the vandals of commercialism! It was past 
midnight when the guttering lamp wick sent him to bed. 

The Committee on Conservation met in The Lariat 
about a week after Grafton’s first session with Hugh. 
It was not a large committee. Six women, all of them 
young except Mrs. Morgan, gathered in the book store on 
a brisk fall afternoon. They had come from little and big 
towns all over the huge state. After each of them had 
explained at length and in detail how she had disposed 


MRS. ELLIS 


ii 7 

of her housework and her children for the period of her 
absence, the chairman called the committee to order. This 
done, Mrs. Morgan stated the purpose of the meeting. 

“Ladies, one of the greatest fossil fields in the world 
lies in the neighborhood of Fort Sioux. It is threatened 
with destruction, and I asked your chairman to call you 
together that we might plan how to save it.” 

A tall, tanned woman in a faded blue suit asked 
abruptly, “Why save it?” 

“I’d rather have electricity in my house than the finest 
fossil ever exhumed,” said the member from the Jackson 
Hole country. 

Mrs. Morgan turned to Hugh, who, decidedly embar¬ 
rassed, was leaning against a bookcase. 

“Hughie,” she said, briskly, “why save it?” 

All eyes at once turned to the tall, melancholy figure 
which now moved from the book shelves to the old place 
before the counter. Hugh talked for half an hour, pictur¬ 
ing in his inimitable way that strange dead life with which 
the Old Sioux Tract teemed. His audience was extraor¬ 
dinarily attentive to the end. He closed quite simply. 

“You are asking why this life of the past is so valuable 
to the present. You all remember when the Germans 
overran Belgium and sacked the Library of Louvain. 
You all remember the wave of anger and violent protest 
that swept over the civilized world when the story of that 
ungenerous, that sacrilegious and futile destruction got 
abroad. And why should we have felt so keenly ? Those 
books were only the dead records of a dead past. Ah, you 
say to me, man has developed from savagery only because 
of his capacity to keep records, records by which society 
could absorb all that had been done, in order to do more. 
Civilization, ladies, could not afford to lose the Library 
of Louvain. And we knew it. 


ii8 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Neither can civilization afford to lose the Old Sioux 
Tract. It is, if you please, a sealed library of priceless 
manuscripts. These manuscripts may revolutionize our 
ideas on evolution, on religion, on the birth and growth 
and destiny of man. If I could succeed in letting the 
world know what the Old Sioux Tract is and what danger 
threatens it, the world would be more than indignant with 
the people of Wyoming. My plea to you is, help me to 
save this great state from an irretrievably stupid act.” 

He paused, bowed awkwardly and went out. It was not 
until two hours had passed that he returned to find Mrs. 
Morgan waiting for him alone. She had deposited the 
committee in the Indian Massacre and was eager to make 
a report to Hugh. 

“Well,” he asked, “what did they think of my speech?” 

“Speech!” repeated his mother-in-law vaguely. “O 
they didn’t say much about it. They were much more 
interested in you than in what you said. As soon as you 
had gone out, Mrs. Ackroyd said, ‘My! hasn’t he a sad 
face! He really feels bad about it, poor thing.’ Mrs. 
Ames cut in with, ‘Didn’t he look interesting standing 
there with all the books and the fossils behind him? He 
thinks a lot of those stones, I can tell you.’ That stout 
woman who sat nearest the stove wanted to know how old 
you were and where Jessie was, and another one of them, 
I think it was Mrs. Friedland, said she’d heard a lot of 
gossip about you and women, but she knew it couldn’t be 
true, and she didn’t care if it was. But the last and best 
was what Mrs. Tanner said: ‘He’s suffering for Wyo¬ 
ming, that poor, dear thing! Girls, we’ve got to help 
him !’ ” 

“Good Lord in heaven!” shouted Hugh. “Are they 
crazy? They absolutely failed to get the idea. I told you 
I couldn’t make a speech women would care about.” 


MRS. ELLIS 


119 

“It was exactly the kind of a speech that I wanted you 
to make,” returned Mrs. Morgan. “It got your person¬ 
ality over to them. I’m perfectly delighted. And we got 
our program sketched out—that is, as far as their share 
is concerned.” 

Hugh clasped both hands to his head and groaned. 
“What have I let myself in for!” 

“Let me tell you the plans,” Mrs. Morgan went on, as 
if Hugh had not spoken. 

Hugh looked at her. Irritation, admiration and protest 
struggled for a moment in his eyes, then with a sudden 
relaxing of his long body, he burst into a shout of laugh¬ 
ter. Mrs. Morgan stared at him in astonishment. 

“Don’t tell me the plans, please, Mrs. Morgan. I’ve 
changed my mind about wanting to know details,” said 
Hugh when he could speak. “Just tell me what to do and 
I’ll do it. I am a poor fool, but I can recognize a master 
hand in this.” 

His mother-in-law considered his plea, then she said 
soberly, “I think you are right. I don’t want your mind 
cluttered up with details. Don’t come over to supper 
tonight. I’ll send you a tray here. You aren’t to mix 
with them familiarly, at all.” 

Hugh laughed again as she trotted out the door. He 
had not felt so diverted since Miriam’s departure. “Uncle 
Bookie,” he said softly, “how you would have enjoyed 
this! I’d give a year of my life to have you here now!” 

Two days later, the committee on the Children’s Code 
bill gathered in the book store. Hugh watched them as 
they came in and settled themselves in the chairs before 
the fire. It seemed to him that these women were quite 
another type from those who had composed the Conser¬ 
vation Committee. They were older and their conversation 
was centered on Governor Eli, who was asking for re- 


120 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 


nomination to office. It struck Hugh that here was a 
group with whom he could get on. They were clean cut, 
efficient, and their knowledge of state politics was almost 
as startling to him as their scathing comments on the 
governor. He made the same speech to them that he had 
made to the Committee on Conservation. But when he 
had finished, they did not allow him to go out. 

“How would you make the most money out of the 
Tract?” asked one of the women. “By selling it to the 
Eastern Electric Corporation, or by selling fossils off it?” 

Hugh was staggered. He looked at the woman with 
such astonishment that she blushed to the roots of her 
white hair. “I didn’t mean to affront you, Mr. Stewart!” 
she exclaimed. 

“I am a little affronted,” admitted Hugh. “It hadn’t 
occurred to me that any one could think I had any money 
interest in this.” 

“I don’t know why we shouldn’t think so,” returned his 
questioner, stoutly. “You gave up fossils this last spring 
so as to inherit your uncle’s big property, didn’t you?” 

Hugh set his teeth. This was the sort of thing a man 
who entered public life let himself in for! After a short 
struggle, which showed plainly in his face, he said: 

“I don’t care to go into the reasons that led me to give 
two years to The Lariat. But I will say that if we can 
prevent the flooding of the Old Sioux Tract, I’ll make it 
over to the state of Wyoming as a perpetual fossil field.” 

“Then what do you get out of this campaign?” asked 
another member. 

“I get the satisfaction,” said Hugh, “of having saved 
something that is of immense value, though it can’t be 
measured in money.” 

The chairman nodded, but said, turning to Mrs. Mor- 


MRS. ELLIS 


121 


gan, “All this is very interesting, Madam President, but 
I don’t see where this committee comes in.” 

“Don’t you, Madam Chairman?” exclaimed Mrs. Mor¬ 
gan quickly. “Think ! What have you to offer the women 
of this state to hold the solidarity you gained when the 
Children’s Code was lost?” 

“I know all about that! But I certainly am not going 
to make myself a laughing stock by offering fossils in the 
place of children.” 

Hugh turned from the women to stare out the window. 
An old Sioux was driving a herd of moth-eaten ponies 
toward the railroad corral. It was cold up on the plains, 
for a snow flurry was powdering the yellow top of the 
canyon wall. For a moment he did not hear what was 
being said by the women, for he was realizing with exceed¬ 
ing bitterness that once more he had failed to show how 
his work tied up with life. 

He was roused by a question. “How did you stand on 
the Children’s Code, Mr. Stewart?” 

“I was for it, of course.” 

“Did you urge your assemblyman to vote for it?” 
asked the chairman. “Did you take any active interest 
in it?” 

“No, I didn’t,” returned Hugh, frankly puzzled. 

“Yet, you ask us to fight for something that’s of as 
little value to the state as fossils.” 

“I didn’t understand that it was a swapping propo¬ 
sition,” said Hugh, stiffly. 

“All politics is swapping,” returned the chairman. 

“So is this, if you’d just use your brain to get the 
point,” cried Mrs. Morgan. “You need a man for 
the women to fasten to. Here’s a man who’s—” She 
was interrupted by Hugh. “I’d much prefer you’d drop 


122 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

the whole matter as far as this committee is concerned, 
Mrs. Morgan,” he said. 

The chairman looked at him keenly. “A man that’s 
going into politics, Mr. Stewart, has to leave his dignity 
behind him.” 

“I have no intention of going into politics,” replied 
Hugh. “I shall fight as best I can for this, but I certainly 
shall never be a politician,” and he picked up his hat and 
walked out, leaving the field to the women. 

Nor did the astute Mrs. Morgan succeed in beguiling 
the Children’s Code Committee into taking Hugh’s trou¬ 
bles on as a substitute for the Code for which, politically 
speaking, they had fought, bled and died. She was 
puzzled but not discouraged. 

“I ought to have known,” she said to Hugh that eve¬ 
ning, “that they’d be too old and too experienced to fall 
for you as easily as the Conservation Committee did. I’m 
keeping 'em on here for a day or so, letting ’em wrangle 
over state politics, while I do more thinking.” 

“Let them go,” urged Hugh, “and let me get to work 
with the men in power.” 

“You don’t seem to understand, Hughie, that the East¬ 
ern Electric Corporation lias money and we haven’t. And 
moreover, Mrs. Ellis, the chairman, has a brother on the 
Public Utilities Commission.” 

Hugh sighed. “Well, what is their objection to help¬ 
ing me?” 

“Just what they said yesterday. They don’t see any 
flesh and blood interest in fossils. Not that I expected 
them to! But I did think they’d see possibilities in you. 
But, you see, they all are women who’ve made their way 
up from the ranches and they don’t see things like they 
ought to. Not that they’d admit it. But I realize that, 
now that I'ye looked them over. The other committee 


MRS. ELLIS 


123 

was this new generation and they are softer. Don’t talk 
to me any more. I must think.” 

And think she did, while Pink fled from the hotel and 
sought refuge in the barber shop. Hugh, in the meantime, 
walked the floor of The Lariat and debated the feasibility 
of casting off Mrs. Morgan and going up to Cheyenne to 
face the Public Utilities Commission alone. Grafton, he 
knew, was there now. 

It was while the Children’s Code Committee was in 
session that he received a letter from Miriam in response 
to his to her telling of his trouble. She made no concrete 
suggestions save that he put his plan before the public 
himself. The letter was immensely heartening to Hugh. 
And so was a short visit paid him by Fred Allward. 

Fred clumped into The Lariat the morning after Hugh’s 
speech before the Children’s Code Committee, wearing an 
airman’s outfit. 

'‘Well, Hughie,” he said, “here I am, into it up to my 
forelock!” 

“For heaven’s sake, Fred, what are you up to now?” 
demanded Hugh. 

“You told me to take orders from her. She told me 
to go over to the air camp and get myself learnt to drive 
that airplane she’s bid in. Say, I hate her as much as 
ever, but she’s smart. You got to admit it. She said 
if I could drive mules and a jitney, I could drive an air¬ 
plane. Say, Hughie, I feel like I was driving one of our 
big stone birds come to life. I’m to drive you when I get 
learnt.” 

“Fred,” said Hugh, “I’ll trust you to dangle me at the 
end of a rope over a thousand-foot drop, and I’ll trust you 
to keep a team of ten wild mules in order. But I’ll be 
hanged if I’ll let you take me up in a plane.” 

Fred looked hurt. “Doggone it, Hughie, don’t go and 


124 THE exile of the lariat 

pie this idea of hers! It’s good. It’s advertising. She’s 
up to date, though I thank God I ain’t her husband.” 

Hugh burst into sudden laughter. “All right, Fred! 
I’m glad you think we’re in good hands. When the 
government aviator tells me you are a full-fledged air man, 
I’ll go up with you.” 

“That’s good!” Fred’s tone was mollified. “How do 
you like my outfit, Hughie ? Got it from that little aviator, 
Marten. Takes about ten years off me, eh?” 

“Yes, it does, Fred, and if you’d shave your beard, 
you’d lose ten years more.” 

This was an old debate between the two, always much 
enjoyed by Hugh and much resented by Fred. But now, 
to Hugh’s vast amusement, the old miner felt his beard 
regretfully, sighed, walked out of The Lariat and headed 
for the barber shop. 

Hugh avoided the members of the committee as best he 
could, but on the second day of the session in the Indian 
Massacre, Mrs. Ellis appeared in The Lariat. Hugh 
placed a chair for her before the fire and waited for her 
to speak. There was something he liked about this stout, 
gray-haired woman, although he felt her hostility to him. 

“Mr. Stewart,” she said, abruptly, “we’re leaving to¬ 
morrow and I wanted to tell you myself why we’re turning 
down Mrs. Morgan’s proposition.” 

“I don’t know what her proposition is, exactly,” Hugh 
spoke frankly. “I asked her not to tell me details.” 

“That’s where you're a fool, then,” returned Mrs. Ellis 
with equal frankness. “She’s just as cold and unscrupu¬ 
lous as she is smart. Eve told her that to her face. And 
that’s not saying she isn’t going to make the best president 
the federation ever had, because she is. Well, in so many 
words, she wants you to be our candidate for governor, 
and I don’t see it.” 


MRS. ELLIS 


125 

“Good Lord!” shouted Hugh, “I should hope not! 
The woman is crazy!” 

“No, she isn’t in the least.” Mrs. Ellis watched Hugh 
keenly. “But she can’t put this particular deal over 
with us.” 

“She certainly can’t. Here, I’m going to bring her over 
here and settle that dream of hers, once and for all.” 
Hugh rose, but Mrs. Ellis leaned forward and put a plump 
hand on his wrist. 

“Sit down, Mr. Stewart, and let’s you and me under¬ 
stand each other before any one else comes in on it.” 

Hugh sat down again, his gray eyes smoldering. Mrs! 
Ellis went on, slowly, choosing her words with more and 
more care as Hugh’s beautiful mouth twitched more 
and more ominously. 

“Mrs. Morgan’s proposition is, that if we make you 
governor, the Children’s Code will be enacted into law and 
administered exactly as we wish it to be administered. 
Have you ever read that code, Mr. Stewart ?” 

“No,” said Hugh, shortly. 

“Well, it was prepared by the foremost specialists in this 
country; by people who are experts in the breeding, care 
and training of children; by people who have had years 
of experience in handling delinquent children and depend¬ 
ent children, normal and abnormal children, in educating 
children for self-support, for citizenship, for fatherhood 
and motherhood. Had it gone through, it would have 
made Wyoming the first state in the union in handling 
children. And in another generation or two, it would 
have produced a citizenry that no other state and no other 
nation could touch.” 

The stout woman spoke with a clarity and vehemence 
that roused Hugh from his contemplation of himself. He 
listened attentively. 


126 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“And now,” she said, “your mother-in-law proposes 
that a man as one-sided as you, a childless and, I under¬ 
stand, a wifeless man, be put up to save a fossil field and 
by stealth, as it were, to put through this bill. You 
couldn’t do it. Why, I’d laugh if it wasn’t such a serious 
matter.” 

“Serious to you or to me?” asked Hugh. 

“To the state of Wyoming!” replied Mrs. Ellis sharply. 

“You can put your mind at rest on that point, madam,” 
said Hugh. “I shall not be candidate for governor.” 

“Let me tell you two things.” Mrs. Ellis was again 
watching Hugh’s face attentively. “One, you can save 
your fossil field only as governor. Politics absolutely 
control the natural resources of this state. Efforts at the 
Capitol have focused for years on water-power sites. 
There’s a big battle between state and federal control and 
it’s been expedient to concentrate more and more control 
in the governorship. You don’t know all this, Mrs. Mor¬ 
gan says. Fact number two—the women, for various 
reasons, will swing the next gubernatorial election, and 
Mrs. Morgan, because she is Mrs. Morgan and because 
she’s president of the Federation, probably could make 
you governor.” 

“And what do you want me to do?” asked Hugh. 

“I’m not making any suggestions to you,” answered 
the chairman of the Children’s Code Committee. “I’m 
merely telling you why I stand where I do. The man 
whom I shall back for governor must be a virile man, a 
man with fatherhood in his soul, an unselfish, social- 
minded human being in whom we could have absolute 
faith that he’d fight to the death for the Children’s Code.” 

“Evidently, I don’t measure up,” said Hugh. 

“You don’t believe yourself that you do, do you?” asked 
Mrs. Ellis, speaking gently for the first time. 


MRS. ELLIS 


127 

Hugh looked from Mrs. Ellis’ plump, earnest face out 
to the far yellow field where an airplane reeled in drunken 
flight just above the sand. Something in his interlocutor’s 
eyes had brought back Uncle Bookie’s dying words: 
“Don’t make my mistake—for God’s sake, don’t! Give 
all—all.” 

Hugh sighed deeply and turned back to Mrs. Ellis. 
“No,” slowly, “I can’t answer to that description.” 

“It’s a great pity that you don’t!” 

“It’s possible, isn’t it?” asked Hugh, sadly, “that I am 
valuable in my chosen field, and that my field may some 
day be as valuable to humanity as the Children’s Code?” 

“You don’t really mean that, do you?” 

Hugh was about to reply when Mrs. Morgan darted in, 
a little breathless, her eyes bright with curiosity. 

“I hope I don’t interrupt!” she exclaimed. 

“No,” replied Hugh, “because I want you to hear what 
I have to say to Mrs. Ellis.” He repeated his last question 
and Mrs. Ellis’ counter-query, and continued: “What 
I want to say is that while I would find it impossible to 
persuade myself to give up the fight for the Old Sioux 
Tract, I certainly do refuse to imperil the Children’s Code 
by allowing you, Mrs. Morgan, to use it as a pawn to 
manipulate me into the governorship.” 

“But you don’t refuse to be a candidate, do you?” cried 
Mrs. Morgan. 

“Yes, I do refuse to be,” replied Hugh. “I may not 
have fatherhood in my soul, but I do love this old state 
of Wyoming, and I do think the Children’s Code bill 
should not be imperiled by me or any other man with a 
one-track mind. I’ve made a big mistake in putting 
myself into your hands, Mrs. Morgan. I hadn’t realized 
what you would do with me.” 

His mother-in-law turned bitterly to Mrs. Ellis. “What 


128 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

have you been saying? Now, I’ve got all my work to do 
over!” 

“I’ve merely told him facts,” said Mrs. Ellis, rising. 
“A trifling job that you neglected.” 

“May I ask,” snapped Mrs. Morgan, “who your candi¬ 
date for governor is going to be?” 

“I haven’t any idea who he’ll be, Mrs. Morgan, but it 
won’t be some one who’ll sell his brain to you, sight 
unseen.” 

Hugh had risen, too. “I haven’t done that, Mrs. Ellis,” 
he said, quietly. 

“Not intentionally, I believe, after this talk with you,” 
she said. “But it’s a great pity that a man with a spirit 
and a personality like yours should let himself be so 
entirely hipped on one idea that he seems to lack qualities 
he probably possesses,” and she left the shop, followed by 
Mrs. Morgan in violent eruption. 

It was not yet midafternoon, but after a moment’s 
hesitation Hugh put on his mackinaw and spurs and, 
locking the door behind him, hastened over to the hotel 
corral, where he saddled and mounted Fossil. Then he 
rode slowly down the sandy street. 


CHAPTER VII 


WILD HORSES 

TT was a beautiful afternoon, crisp and clear. Two 
■*“ Indians and a white rider were roping steers in the 
railroad corral. They worked in a cloud of yellow dust 
through which their brilliant neckerchiefs could be seen 
like little darting flames. A huge pack outfit passed Hugh 
on the south edge of the town; covered wagon bouncing 
and jangling, pack horses shaking unwilling heads, mules 
braying—an oil prospector’s outfit returning after a 
summer’s work. 

Hugh worked slowly along toward the bridge which 
lay a mile beyond the edge of Fort Sioux. He had no 
special destination in view. He had left The Lariat with 
the feeling that if he remained another moment under its 
roof, he would smother. He was angry, and to his utter 
astonishment, angry with himself, an unusual condition 
for Hugh. 

Wyoming had for years, of course, been an equal suf¬ 
frage state. Hugh had had no feeling at all of feminizing 
himself by allowing a woman to manage him politically. 
But, after his talk with Mrs. Ellis, he was feeling dis¬ 
tinctly that in not fighting his fight with men, he had 
belittled himself. Yet, he knew that no such thought had 
entered Mrs. Ellis’ mind. 

Fossil trotted rapidly across the bridge and Hugh 
headed him toward the trail up to the plains. He had 

no reason, he argued with himself, for this sense of anger 

129 


130 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

He was only experiencing once more in this contact with 
the Children’s Code Committee that old and universally 
contemptuous attitude of the American toward the man 
whose work did not show an obvious and practical contact 
with life. But he could not, for once, comfort himself 
with the old sense of aloofness and superiority. His 
anger toward himself must, he realized, be based on some¬ 
thing he had not as yet been able to formulate. 

Fossil, feeling the reins still loose on his neck when he 
reached the plains at the top of the corkscrew trail, stopped 
of his own accord to get breath after the heavy ascent. 
Hugh sighed and turned his attention to the panorama 
before him. It had been many days since he had left the 
canyon, and the view, of which he never wearied, enticed 
him for a moment from his gloomy contemplation of self. 

All the vivid summer tints of purple sage and bright 
green bunch grass had disappeared. Vast undulating 
wastes of buff and russet brown stretched westward 
toward the black timber shadows that banded themselves at 
the foot of the brilliant blue peaks of the White Wolves— 
peaks so truly blue that Hugh distinguished them from 
the sapphire heavens only by the long, snow-filled crevices 
that scintillated like vast crystal cobwebs above the black 
patches of the Forest Reserve. 

Fall clouds were shifting in their unspeakable glory 
across the canyon, now seeming about to drop like rose- 
tinted veils over the orange ribbon of the river, now like 
golden gossamer blown in titanic filaments far down the 
canyon, where they met the crimson buttes and vast 
columns that marked the river’s course; met them, 
caressed them for a lovely moment, then melted from gold 
to silver, and so on into the ever waiting, ever brooding 
sky. Clouds of purest scarlet sailed with unbelievable 
majesty among the exquisite crests of the White Wolves. 


WILD HORSES 


13 1 

Clouds of purple hung over the far, undulating wastes of 
the Old Sioux Tract to the north, and as Hugh looked, 
once again ravished by the old, old wonder of the sight, 
they disappeared beyond the uttermost other horizon. 

Fossil jerked his great blue body fretfully and Hugh, 
catching sight of a mighty spiral of dust rising on the 
trail from the White Wolves, spurred the horse toward it. 
The trail led to the Clifton Pass and on into the wild-horse 
country. Some one must be bringing down a herd. Hugh 
had a sudden yearning for the old days when he had 
ridden range on his summer vacations for Bookie, and he 
set the big roan to the gallop. 

Suddenly it seemed to him, as the indescribable odor of 
plains smote his face, that nothing, nothing was worth his 
exile in The Lariat; that out of the tangle and disappoint¬ 
ment of his life there could be but one door to content— 
to return somehow to the open. The rise and fall of the 
horse, the sweet, sharp w r ind in his ears, the freedom from 
human urgings and irritations—God, what a fool he was 
to submit himself to all that had occurred in the past six 
months. 

He had galloped a couple of long miles along the wind¬ 
ing trail before he espied the cause of the dust. Some one 
was bringing in a herd of horses. He made a wide detour 
to reach the rear of the herd without breaking it, waving 
his hand with a shout as he ascertained that the rider on 
the pinto pony was Red Wolf. 

“Wild horses, eh, Red Wolf?” he cried as he joined 
his old friend. “Good Lord, what a haul! A hundred 
and fifty? Hello, Eagle Wing!” to Red Wolf’s son, a 
huge, solemn-faced Indian on a black mare. 

“Hundred forty,” said Red Wolf, with a grin. His 
blue flannel shirt was so powdered with dust as to be 
almost indistinguishable from the bronze of his face. 


132 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Where did you get them?” 

“Black Basin country, back of White Wolves. For 
government.” 

“Have any trouble getting them in?” asked Hugh, 
bringing Fossil to bear on a lagging mare. 

“O not so heap much! All too tired now, too hungry 
make much trouble.” 

“Well, it’s a fine haul!” exclaimed Hugh. “Lord, it’s 
a thousand years since I brought in my last bunch 
of wild horses. Fossil’s mother was a foal in that lot. 
Remember ?” 

Red Wolf nodded and rode to the left as a huge dapple- 
gray stallion suddenly reared and made a break for an 
unexpected draw. Hugh loosened and recoiled his lariat, 
then followed in with a look of vast interest. 

And Red Wolf had reason to be glad of Hugh’s help 
not long after, for as the herd drew nearer to the river 
canyon and smelled water, it took all the skill of the three 
riders to prevent a stampede. In fact, the trip down the 
corkscrew trail was a miracle and nothing less, with 
unshod hoofs thundering, small stones flying, screams of 
crowded brood mares, hoarse neighing of stallions and a 
streaming welter of dark, flying manes and tails against 
the red canyon walls, doubly crimson in the setting sun. 
A colt or two fell over the edge; but the main body made 
the passage in safety. 

Once on the level canyon floor, Hugh galloped ahead 
to guard the bridge—a stampede through the town might 
result in casualties—while Red Wolf and his son were 
able, with much whooping, hard riding and lashing with 
long lariat ropes, to force the frantic beasts away from 
the steep and fatal brim toward which the gray stallion 
was leading them, to the watering ford near the bridge. 

The horses had finished drinking and were milling 


WILD HORSES 


133 

anxiously on the level floor again when a jitney containing 
Mrs. Morgan and her committee buzzed half-way across 
the bridge, and paused. 

“Can we get across, Hughie,” called his mother-in-law, 
“before they reach the bridge? We’re going over to the 
air camp. Fred flew up the canyon half an hour ago and 
we want to see him land.” 

Hugh shook his head, his eyes on the uneasy herd. 
“You’d better go back. There’s no telling what these 
brutes will do. Good heavens, here he comes now!” 

Above the uproar made by the jitney, above the churn¬ 
ing of the herd, sounded the fusillade of the approaching 
plane, zigzagging drunkenly, just over the water. A tiny 
figure, w r aving impotent arms, appeared on the run from 
the airplane camp. An eagle hung frozen in the blue 
above as if he sensed the impending calamity and was 
paralyzed by it. The milling of the herd changed to 
frenzied circling. The airplane made an abortive effort 
to turn toward the town side of the river, twisted com¬ 
pletely round with nose toward the air camp, dragged one 
wing in the water and charged like an ancient tyrana- 
saurus through the shallows of the drinking ford into the 
lunging herd. 

Fossil reared and fought to turn onto the bridge. Mrs. 
Morgan, like the eagle, seemed for a moment paralyzed, 
then she set the machine to backing while the women with 
her wrung their hands and seemed to scream, though no 
sound could be heard above the airplane and the herd. 
Hugh, one eye on the jitney, dug the spurs deep and held 
Fossil firmly across the bridgehead while he fought back 
the maddened beasts that hurled themselves against him. 
The airplane circled viciously for a moment, then leaving 
behind it an awful, screaming carnage, it ran straight 
across the canyon and brought up against the far red wall. 


134 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

The gray stallion, with blood-stained mane, appeared from 
the chaos of legs beside the drinking ford, and in the sud¬ 
den half-stillness that succeeded the departure of the 
airplane, he squealed ferociously and, thoroughly amuck, 
charged the bridgehead. 

The mares which Hugh had been lashing back with his 
lariat fell aside. As the gray stallion reared to strike at 
Fossil, a small black stallion charged through the retreat¬ 
ing mares and hit the gray on the flank. He struck deep 
for his bite had all the impact of the little brute’s leap 
through the mares. It brought the gray down on his back. 
In the moment’s respite, Hugh looked back at the jitney. 
It was stalled across the middle of the bridge. He swore 
and began hastily to coil his lariat, a feat as extraordinary 
as it was beautiful in its grace, for Fossil was rearing and 
plunging. Hugh hung on with his spurs, coiled the rope 
and waited. 

It was evident that here was an ancient enmity that the 
assault by the airplane had precipitated. The gray, once 
more on his feet, would have charged Hugh again, but 
the black, frenzied by the sight and smell of his enemy’s 
blood, would not permit it. He reared and struck at the 
gray’s head, gouging his neck as he came down. The gray 
squealed and turned to do battle. 

Hugh’s saddle gun was loaded, but he was loath to 
injure either of the beautiful brutes. Once more he 
glanced at the jitney. Mrs. Morgan was wringing her 
hands over the steering wheel. A stallion gone amuck 
is almost as dangerous and quite as vicious as a mad 
elephant. Hugh hesitated for a moment. Eagle Wing, 
over by the watering ford, was helping his father to his 
feet. The old Indian apparently was terribly injured. 
Hugh backed Fossil slowly along the bridge until he was 
far enough from the huge battle on the bridgehead to 


WILD HORSES 


i 3 S 

avoid the lunging and terrible hoofs. He swung his rope 
carefully, caught the rearing gray around the two forelegs 
and as the great brute fell he turned Fossil and ran him 
to within a few yards of the stalled jitney. Then while 
the gray rolled and squealed and before he could cause a 
perceptible slack in the lariat, which the well-trained Fossil 
strained to keep taut, Hugh leaped from the saddle, pack 
rope and Fossil’s hackamore in hand, and with unbeliev¬ 
able quickness roped the gray’s rear legs. 

The black, in the meantime, had paused in bewilderment 
at the sudden inexplicable departure of his enemy. But 
as Hugh dismounted and leaped toward the gray, he 
squealed and charged. Hugh slipped a hackamore over 
the gray’s head and was fastening it to the bridge rail 
as the black leaped with all fours on his helpless foe. 
Hugh jumped aside, but not quite quickly enough to 
escape a flying hoof which ripped his corduroy jacket 
from neck to belt. The leaping black brought up against 
Fossil, still struggling to keep taut the lariat rope that now 
was beginning to twist the saddle. Fossil was in no mood 
to be tampered with and he promptly bit the black on the 
cheek with an expert incisiveness that brought the doughty 
warrior to a moment’s pause. In that moment, Hugh 
released the lariat from the gray and running under the 
black’s outstretched neck he mounted and rode down upon 
the angry little stallion. 

The black had no intention of turning tail, but Hugh 
did not propose to use the lariat until he had forced the 
black out of fighting distance of the gray. Fossil, angry 
and excited, needed no urging. He rushed squealing to 
the battle, biting his adversary as shoulder met shoulder, 
and Hugh lashed the foam-flecked black face with all the 
force of the coiled rope. The stallion leaped backward, 
teeth bared, and Hugh twirled the lariat and roped him 


136 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

round the neck. Then, as the stallion reared for a charge, 
he shouted at Fossil, dug the spurs deep and raced past the 
black. The rope came taut and the astonished stallion, 
choking and kicking, was turned and dragged from the 
bridge to the sand, where shortly Hugh had him hobbled 
and staked. 

Hugh wiped his face on his sleeve and looked about 
him. The other horses were scattered in small groups 
over the canyon floor. Without the leadership of the 
stallion they would not be too difficult to herd, and 
the jitney no longer was of moment. Hugh ran quickly 
over to the two Indians. Eagle Wing was tying his 
neck scarf around his father’s chest, which was fearfully 
lacerated. Hugh helped as best he could, then said: 

“Take him in to the doctor, Eagle Wing. I’ll look out 
for the herd.” 

Then he galloped across the sand to the scene of the 
airplane wreck. Fred evidently had been able to get some 
sort of control of the engine before he brought up against 
the wall, for except for a crumpled wing Hugh could not 
see that the plane showed outward signs of injury. Fred 
was sitting in the sand, making grimaces, while Marten, 
red of hair and red of face, bound up his arm and cursed 
him. 

“Well, Fred!” said Hugh, soberly. 

Fred looked up, very drawn as to new shaven face, 
very much disheveled as to hair and clothes. But Marten 
gave him no chance to speak. 

“I had told the damn fool fifty times,” shouted Marten, 
“not to go near the plane unless I was with him. But no 
sooner does he get rid of that beard than he thinks he’s 
an ace! He’s lucky to get out with a busted arm. My 
God, a real airman would ’a’ been killed!” 


WILD HORSES 


i37 

“Not if he’d ever driven a twelve-mule team,” inter¬ 
posed Hugh grimly. “Pretty much used up, old timer?” 

“Yes. Anybody else hurt?” asked Fred feebly. 

“Old Red Wolf is pretty badly cut up and there’s a 
hellish mess among the horses by the ford. I’ll go back 
there and put the brutes out of their misery. Can you 
get him over to the Doc without me, Marten? Then I’ll 
stay here and ride herd. Mrs. Morgan was still stalled 
on the bridge when I left. Look out for the stallion I’ve 
got roped there.” 

Fred looked up at Hugh reproachfully. “I told you 
that woman would ruin me,” he said. “I tell you, I’m 
through with her now. I’m going back to fossil digging.” 

“I don’t blame you, pardner,” said Hugh, turning 
Fossil back toward the ford. “When you invite me next 
time to go riding with you, I’d prefer you to make it 
mules!” 

After Hugh with his saddle gun had silenced the 
screams and stilled the tossing legs that marked the crim¬ 
son welter by the river, he turned his attention to the 
wandering herd. Fie had gathered up fifty trembling 
mares and was about to drive them across the bridge to 
the railroad corral when Billy Chamberlain appeared with 
Pink. 

“Hear there’s a bunch of wild horses to be picked up 
here!” shouted Billy. 

“Poor old Red Wolf is out of luck!” replied Hugh. 
“You fellows take these over to the railroad corral and 
I’ll bring in another bunch.” 

“How many did the plane get?” asked Pink, a huge 
figure on his big bay, in the gathering dusk. 

“Twenty, including those I had to shoot. An awful 
mess. Take the gray stallion on a lead rope. He’s a 
fiend.” 


138 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“He’s some horse. Looks like a standard-bred at first 
glance,” said Billy. “I’ll take charge of him, myself.” 

Hugh grunted and trotted off on the still vastly excited 
Fossil It was moonlight when he turned the last of the 
herd into the corral, and, after a wash-up, went into 
the hotel for his supper. The meal had been cleared away 
long since, but Mrs. Morgan fluttered into the dining room 
as soon as he appeared, and to his great discomfort 
insisted on waiting on him herself. 

“I’ll just bring it in from the kitchen,” she said, in 
answer to his protests. 

“Where did they put Fred and Red Wolf?” asked 
Hugh. 

“They’re both upstairs, but I told ’em to put Red Wolf 
over in The Lariat later. You don’t mind him, but I don’t 
want a dirty Indian around me. Besides, I can’t spare 
a room.” 

Hugh stared at his mother-in-law in angry wonder¬ 
ment. He had, he thought, sounded all her meannesses 
years ago. But here was a new one. 

“You may be a first-class politician, Mrs. Morgan,” he 
said stiffly, “but you are mighty limited in your sense of 
hospitality.” 

Mrs. Morgan bristled, but Pink came in before she 
could reply. Mrs. Ellis and one or two other of the com¬ 
mittee women followed him. 

“Say, Hughie,” exclaimed Pink, “these ladies act like 
they think you’d done something more than be a average 
good rider this afternoon.” 

“Well, I haven’t!” said Hugh, hastily, seeming not to 
hear the chorus of protests from Mrs. Ellis and her 
friends. “What did you do with the gray stallion, Pink? 
I couldn’t find him in the railroad corral.” 

Pink grinned. “O I put him where he’d be safe! He’s 


WILD HORSES 


I 39 

too good for an Indian. Guess I’ll keep him to square 
old Red Wolf’s board bill.” 

“Your wife has already circumvented that by arranging 
to have him put in The Lariat tonight,’’ returned Hugh, 
grimly. “Don’t try any of your funny work about the 
gray, Pink. I won’t stand for it.” 

“Want him for yourself, Hughie?” Pink still was 
grinning, but his eyes were hard. 

“That gray stallion is worth all the rest of the herd put 
together,” insisted Hugh. “He belongs to Red Wolf.” 

“The hell he does! Red Wolf picked him up on range. 
Let’s see him prove his right to him.” 

Hugh rose from his half-finished meal. “Look here, 
Pink,” he said, his low voice full of anger, “I’ve stood a 
good deal from you and yours, and right here is where 
we break. Old Red Wolf has been a friend of mine ever 
since I can remember. I’ve eaten and slept and worked 
with him, and he’s a man, every inch of him. That’s why 
I won’t let you steal his horse and why I’m sore at your 
wife’s throwing him out of your house. I’m not going 
to stand for it.” 

“My God, Hughie!” shouted Pink, “you wouldn’t get 
so lathered up over a lousy Indian, would you? Why 
you and the Missis and me has weathered through fights 
over real things. That horse is too good for an Injun, 
and you know it.” 

Hugh stooped and took his hat from under his chair. 
“I’m through!” he exclaimed, as he straightened himself, 
“and Red Wolf shall keep that horse if I carry the matter 
to the supreme court.” 

His head was stiffly erect and his gray eyes were 
burning with a controlled fury that even the controversy 
over the proposed dam had not revealed there. Mrs. Ellis 
and her friends watched him without speaking, Mrs. 


140 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Ellis particularly showing a keenness that even the watch¬ 
ful Mrs. Morgan was too engrossed to observe. That 
astute politician exclaimed, unbelievingly: 

“Hughie, you aren’t going to quit the fight for the 
Old Sioux Tract?” 

“I am as far as you’re concerned,” replied Hugh. 

He bowed to the members of the committee and strode 
out of the room and up the stairs. He found Red Wolf 
in a little back room at the end of the upper hall. The old 
Indian was alone. He opened his eyes feebly as Hugh 
came in. 

“Where’s Eagle Wing, old chap?” asked Hugh. 

“Gone tell squaw.” 

“Then he won’t be back until midnight,” said Hugh. 
“Look here, Red Wolf, I want you to come over to The 
Lariat and let me take care of you.” 

Red Wolf sat up slowly. “We go now,” he said. 
“White squaw don’t want me here.” 

Hugh nodded, and a few moments later the group of 
people in the hotel office saw the old Sioux, carefully sup¬ 
ported by Hugh’s arm under his shoulders, slowly descend 
the stairs, shuffle across the hall and pass out of the door 
into the moon-drenched night. 

Hugh put his old friend to bed on Bookie’s cot. And 
Red Wolf gave a gigantic sigh as Hugh tucked the blanket 
round him. 

“Heap much long time friends, huh, Hughie?” he 
grunted. 

“Yes,” agreed Hugh. “We’ll show ’em, won’t we, old 
timer?” 

Red Wolf nodded and closed his eyes in utter content. 

Hugh renewed the fire in the heater, shaded the lamp 
from his patient’s eyes, and then went out to find the doc¬ 
tor and receive instructions as to the care of the wounded 


WILD HORSES 


I 4 I 

man. He was gone for an hour. Doc Olson was a busy- 
man. When he returned to The Lariat, Mrs. Ellis was 
giving Red Wolf a drink of water. Hugh paused by the 
stove. Mrs. Ellis in a moment joined him and sank with 
a sigh into one of the waiting chairs. 

“You’ll need some one to help you, I guess,” she said. 
“He’s going to be very sick before he’s better. I declare 
I’m tired! I feel as if I’d had a heavy day.” 

“I’m sorry I had to start a row going before you all,” 
said Hugh. “The truth is, I’m in a desperate frame of 
mind and the Morgans happened to touch me on a spot 
that won’t stand rough handling.” 

Mrs. Ellis nodded. “I saw that. How are you feeling, 
now ? Too done up to talk ?” 

“I’m not done up at all. I’ve got to keep Red Wolf’s 
wounds wet with this jar of solution Doc Olson gave me, 
and if you want to help wear away the hours for an ugly- 
tempered fossil digger, here’s your chance.” 

Mrs. Ellis laughed. “Can’t say it sounds attractive!” 
she exclaimed. “But I’ll risk it! You light up your pipe 
and shove that box over for me to rest my feet on—I’m 
so fat I sit short—and we’ll finish what we began this 
afternoon.” 

“But that is finished,” protested Hugh, as he obeyed his 
guest’s instructions. 

“It might have sounded that way to an amateur,” admit¬ 
ted Mrs. Ellis, “but when you’ve been in politics as long 
as I have, you’ll realize that no statement, however final, 
ever really ends anything. However, have you by any 
chance formulated a campaign of your own?” 

“Yes, I’m going after Governor Eli,” replied Hugh. 

“You can try him, of course, but I’ll warn you that 
you’ll have your trouble for your pains. He’s absolutely 
committed to the proposition of squeezing every ounce of 


I 4 2 the exile of. the lariat 

water power out of every river, creek and spring in the 
state. He’s probably already made his personal arrange¬ 
ments with the Eastern Electric Corporation. But you go 
up to Cheyenne and have a conference with him. You’ll 
have no difficulty in seeing him.” 

“I certainly shall try him out,” stated Hugh, “and every 
member of the Public Utilities Commission, too. After 
that I’ll tour the state and speak in every town and every 
cross-trail. Then I’ll go to Washington and camp down 
in the Department of the Interior.” 

Mrs. Ellis nodded. “Not bad. But, of course, that’s 
slow work and, once the Corporation gets its charter, it 
will start condemnatory proceedings on your land.” 

“That, too, is slow work,” suggested Hugh. 

“There might be ways of blocking them for a time, but 
the proceedings would grind along. So you have turned 
Mrs. Morgan down. Was Red Wolf the real reason?” 

Hugh thought for a moment. “Red Wolf was the final 
reason. I love that old Indian. He’s all mixed up in my 
mind with my boyhood and my mother and Bookie and 
my work—and it’s more than that.” He tamped down 
the tobacco in his pipe, and went on. “He’s a fine man, 
and he’s one of the few real friends I have. After all, 
you can’t dissect friendship—Pink’ll return that stallion, 
believe me, he will.” 

“I believe you.” Mrs. Ellis’ voice was serious. “But, 
Mr. Stewart, if Red Wolf was the final reason, what were 
some that preceded it?” 

Hugh hesitated. “I wouldn’t care to go into details 
about them. But in general, Mrs. Morgan has fought my 
sticking to my work, and Pink is hand in glove with the 
Eastern Electric Corporation. And this afternoon my 
gorge rose in my throat at the idea of depending on a lot 
of women to help me out in what is a real man’s fight. 
No, ma’am! I’m on my own now, thanks to Red Wolf.” 


WILD HORSES 


143 

“So the old Sioux made you do what you’ve never done 
for yourself,” said Mrs. Ellis. 

“I guess that’s about it,” agreed Hugh. “I love that 
old Indian.” 

He rose and went back to wet the bandages on the quiet 
figure which looked so unfamiliar on his Uncle Bookie’s 
cot. But he was inexplicably glad to have his old friend 
there. He returned slowly to his place by the fire. 

“Mr. Stewart,” began Mrs. Ellis, “I think I was wrong 
about you this morning. I didn’t understand.” 

“Didn’t understand what?” asked Hugh, wonderingly. 

“Well,” patiently, “perhaps I can make you understand 
by risking hurting you about your work. I still don’t 
understand why paleontology should be at all important 
to Wyoming. I do appreciate, however, the kind of inde¬ 
pendence of mind a man must have to have suffered for 
his work as you’ve been made to suffer for yours.” 

“I’d rather you’d appreciate what paleontology can do 
for Wyoming,” interposed Hugh, grimly. 

“Maybe I shall, when you’ve finished educating all of 
us,” said Mrs. Ellis, seriously. “But the real point is 
that I was in the jitney on the bridge this afternoon, and 
I was in the Indian Massacre dining room this evening.” 

“Poor old Fred did mix things up, didn’t he?” nodded 
Hugh. “But the poor scout didn’t mean a thing but to 
show off like a kid. He’s all broken up. Thinks he’s hurt 
the campaign. I was trying to cheer him up while I was 
waiting for the doctor. But he’s given up being an ace! 
I’m certainly fond of that nervy little devil.” 

The smile that Mrs. Ellis gave Hugh was very moth¬ 
erly. “All right, my dear,” she said, “have it youi* 
own way.” 

Hugh gave her a puzzled glance, but before he could 
continue his insistence on Fred’s charms, his vis-a-vis 
interrupted. 


i 4 4 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“After all, I am a ranch woman, brought up among 
riders of the range. I know what goes to making that 
kind of a man. You are not at all the man with a single- 
track mind you think you are. Mr. Stewart, if you were 
given the chance to fight for the Children’s Code, would 
you fight?” 

Hugh refilled his pipe, carefully. “I was thinking 
about that Code this afternoon while I was gathering in 
Red Wolf’s horses. Curious, isn’t it? It’s building for 
the future, while I am digging up the past. Yet, I’m 
hanged if I don’t think it takes the same kind of pipe- 
dreaming minds to believe in either of them.” 

Mrs. Ellis considered this carefully and at length. 
Hugh was finding her capacity for deliberate thinking 
very enjoyable. 

“I think you are right. But you haven’t answered my 
question, Mr. Stewart.” 

“Why, yes,” said Hugh, “I suppose that if I was 
educated as to details and I saw that my fighting would 
put the Code across, I’d jump in up to my neck—if it 
wouldn’t interfere with my work.” 

Mrs. Ellis chuckled. Then she said seriously. “I want 
to do justice to Mrs. Morgan in one thing. I’m persuaded 
that her idea is correct, that we must either wait for some 
years before bringing up the Code again or we must elect 
a man to the governorship who will go in on some other 
platform but secretly pledged to force the Children’s Code 
bill through the legislature. Therefore, Mr. Stewart, 
I want to ask you to reconsider all your very vehement 
denials and let the women of this state make you its 
governor, under these conditions.” 

Hugh was deeply puzzled. “What in the world has 
made you change so?” he demanded, not without irritation 
in his voice. 


WILD HORSES 


145 

“You’ll probably never know, being you,” Mrs. Ellis 
chuckled again. “But will you reconsider, Mr. Stewart? 
It seems to me-” 

She was interrupted by the violent thrusting open of 
the door. Pink stamped in. 

“Look here!” he shouted, “what have you done with 
that gray stallion?” 

Hugh looked up casually. “How should I know where 
the gray stallion is? I’m not a horse thief!” 

“There ain’t any saying what a fellow is that’ll try to 
wreck the only real chance his home town has had to get 
on the map,” retorted Pink, advancing belligerently 
toward the stove. His high-heeled boots were muddy and 
his face was scratched. “I’ve plowed through every corral 
and stable in this town. Where’s that gray stallion, 
Hughie?” 

Hugh laughed. “Look here, Pink, don’t be a fool! 
If I had taken the horse, you don’t suppose I’m going to 
confess to it, do you?” 

“Why wouldn’t it be Eagle Wing who’d taken the 
stallion along?” asked Mrs. Ellis. 

“Because I was with the stallion when Eagle Wing rode 
out of town, and for an hour after,” growled Pink. 

Again Hugh laughed. “But, Pink, the gray belongs 
to Red Wolf and Eagle Wing. I don’t see where you 
come in.” 

“And I don’t see where you come in,” snapped Pink. 
“I’ll make you suffer for butting in on this, Hughie! 
I could stand you running round with a woman that 
wasn’t my daughter, and I could stand your playing pea¬ 
nut politics with my wife. Both of ’em is a good way to 
keep you busy while I bring in the bacon on the Old Sioux 
Tract. But, if you think I’m a-going to stand you getting 



146 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

away with a horse I want, you’ve got another guess com¬ 
ing. Not for no stinking, lousy Injun like Red Wolf.” 

Hugh rose slowly. “That is about all, Pink! You’d 
better leave now, and don't come back again.” 

Mrs. Ellis, the veteran witness of many a bitter fight 
in a country of fighting men, drew a quick breath as she 
watched Hugh. She knew instinctively that Pink was 
negligible. But Plugh, towering to his full height, was 
transformed from the melancholy, absent-minded scientist, 
the concentrated, swift-moving cowman, to an embodi¬ 
ment of controlled fury. In his muddling insolence, Pink 
had struck every raw spot in Hugh’s sensitive mind. His 
eyes were black, his mouth compressed, his jaw rigid. It 
was not Hugh’s anger that startled Mrs. Ellis. It was his 
control of it. He did not move for a full moment. Then 
he said in his low voice, as Pink did not offer to leave: 

“I’m afraid you didn’t understand me, Pink.” 

“O I guess I understand enough to know my son-in- 
law is a-” 

“You’d better go!” said Hugh, without raising his 
voice. 

Pink looked up into the younger man’s eyes, and at 
what he saw there, his face slowly whitened. He swal¬ 
lowed carefully and audibly twice, and stood silently 
gazing. Then he turned on one of his high heels and 
moved very hastily out of The Lariat. Hugh looked at 
Mrs. Ellis, without seeing her, and walked slowly back 
to Red Wolf’s cot, where he wet the old chief’s bandages. 
Mrs. Ellis waited until he returned to his chair opposite 
hers, then, with a sudden flush of tears to her keen eyes 
at what she read in the twisted smile on Hugh’s lips, 
she rose to go. 

“I’ll not ask you for an answer tonight,” she said. 



WILD HORSES 


147 

“Life—O life hangs so inscrutably and so fearfully on 
the unimportant things! It appalls me!” 

“Yes, it does,” replied Hugh, slowly. “I don’t want 
the nomination, Mrs. Ellis.” 

“We’ll not discuss that now! I, at least, am very tired. 
Good night!” she said, turning toward the door. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE GRAY STALLION 

H UGH’S night was a complex one, woven of anger, 
of passionate desire to turn to Miriam in his 
perplexity, of an almost uncontrollable yearning to dish 
everything and return to his old freedom on the plains. 
But, nursing Red Wolf as he fought his fight, the hours 
were full of Bookie and Bookie’s last moments on that 
very cot. He would not, he could not break faith. He 
had not yet fathomed what the wise old man had meant 
when he had pleaded with him to give all. But, somehow, 
he would learn. Miriam would help him. 

Eagle Wing returned at dawn with his mother, but 
Hugh, long ago disillusioned as to the possibilities for 
cleanliness in a blanket Indian, dared not install the old 
woman as nurse. After she was satisfied that her man 
was well cared for, he sent her over to Fred’s camp by 
the river, with the promise that she could see Red Wolf 
whenever she wished. 

The old chief scarcely had spoken during the night. 
But when his squaw had gone, he astonished Hugh by 
opening his eyes and saying to Eagle Wing: 

“You take the gray stallion?” 

“No,” said Eagle Wing. “Pink got ’em in his stable.” 
“No has got,” grunted Red Wolf. “He say Hughie 
got. You go tell Pink you got ’em.” 

“But no have got ’em,” protested Eagle Wing, rising 
nevertheless to obey. 


148 


THE GRAY STALLION 


149 

“That’s all right,” agreed Red Wolf. “But you save 
Hughie trouble.” 

“No!” said Hugh, decidedly. “Pink has done all the 
harm to me he can. But he will make you two a lot of 
trouble if he thinks you have that stallion. Let it alone, 
Red Wolf.” 

The old man sighed. “You’re a heap big fool, Hughie!” 
But his tone was that of acquiescence and affection, and 
shortly he was asleep. 

Hugh’s conference with Mrs. Ellis was but of few 
moments’ duration. He was at breakfast in the tiny 
Chinese restaurant beyond the barber shop when the stout 
chairman bore down upon him. She took a chair opposite 
him, gamely ordered a cup of the vile cqffee and said, 
“How’s Red Wolf?” 

“Fair. He’ll be crawling around in a week. The 
recuperative power of these Indians is marvelous.” 

“And what’s the final answer?” 

Lines of pain suddenly appeared in Hugh’s face. “Mrs. 
Ellis, I don’t want to go into politics. I am a man with 
a single ambition, whose chosen vocation satisfies that 
ambition to its depths. I believe that I can save the Old 
Sioux Tract without going into politics, and I’m going 
to try. I like you and I’d like to help you about the Chil¬ 
dren’s Code. In fact, I will help you in every way I can, 
after I’ve done this other job. Won’t that satisfy you?” 

Mrs. Ellis sipped the mess of coffee Ah Lang placed 
before her almost to its dregs before she replied: 

“And I like you, Mr. Stewart. I like you so much that 
I hate to see you break your heart against that gang at 
Cheyenne. But I believe it’s best that you do so. And 
when they have finished with you, you send for me to 
come down to The Lariat to look at your spring line of 
books. And I’ll come. In the meantime, I’m going to do 


150 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

one thing for you. I’m going to get my brother to hold 
up the granting of the charter for a month or so. He’s 
on the Commission. I can’t get more than that out of 
him, though.” 

Hugh looked at Mrs. Ellis keenly. She must have been 
very beautiful as a girl. Her face now was a little aggres¬ 
sive, but still it was handsome. She wore her masses of 
white hair anyhow on the back of her head. She wore 
a very smart black toque at a very unbecoming angle and 
the cut of her suit was all wrong for her stout figure. 
But Hugh did not know this. He liked her and smiled 
as he said: 

“I believe you’ve got a good many things up your 
sleeve. And I’m not at all sure but what you’re as clever 
a politician as Mrs. Morgan.” 

“I’ll never be as successful as she, because I’m not as 
unscrupulous as she is,” replied Mrs. Ellis. 

“Well,” said Hugh, “I don’t know anything about 
politics, but I’d say there wasn’t any business in life from 
busting broncos to making governors where a perfectly 
lucid honesty wouldn’t win in the end.” 

“We’ll see if that’s true!” Mrs. Ellis returned his 
smile as she rose, offering him her hand. “I’m taking 
the nine o’clock Limited. Don’t rise. You aren’t half 
through your breakfast. Good-by, my boy. I wish you 
were happier.” 

“I’m happier than I deserve to be at that! Good-by, 
Mrs. Ellis, and thank you.” 

He had a sudden sinking of his heart as she hurried 
past the restaurant window. He had made a friend, only 
to put her from him. Then he wondered, aimlessly 
enough, how his tall, gray-eyed mother would have looked 
with white hair, and finished his breakfast on that con¬ 
templation. 


THE GRAY STALLION i 5 i 

He wrote that day for a room in Cheyenne and made 
his plans for going over to the state capital the following 
week when Red Wolf would be able to move to the camp 
by the river. He arranged for Fred Allward to keep The 
Lariat for him, Fred’s broken arm being the only damage 
he had sustained beyond a grievously hurt pride, which 
seated itself in utter bitterness toward Mrs. Morgan. 

The final parting between Fred and Mrs. Morgan took 
place in The Lariat. Fred limped into the book store two 
days after the accident, to find Hugh somewhat the worse 
for lack of sleep. 

“How’s Red Wolf? Anybody helping you to take care 
of him? Nice town, this! Well, maybe I ain’t an ace 
yet, but, anyhow, I can spell you nights on this job.” 

“You can do more than that, Fred. You can run this 
place for me while I go up to Cheyenne to see what I can 
do with the Public Service Commission.” 

The little mining man brightened. He looked apprais¬ 
ingly at the shop, then at Hugh. “One thing is sure, 
Hughie. I can’t be any worse than you are. Did you 
ever think you might kind of get rid of some of the dust 
and dirt on them shelves?” 

“Now look here, Fred! Don’t try any house-cleaning 
in here! That is all right in the sheep wagon, but not in 
The Lariat. You’ll find everything on the shelves labeled 
and bearing a price mark. All you’ve got to do is to read 
the label when some one asks a question.” 

Fred groaned. “Who do you think will ask about a 
mess like that? Lord! Here comes Mrs. Morgan!” 

Both men stood in silence before the stove while Mrs. 
Morgan came deliberately down the room. 

“Good morning, Fred. I’ve come to offer you a job. 
What would you charge to act as my chauffeur?” 

“Your what?” gasped Fred. 


152 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“My chauffeur. Pink is so full of mysterious business 
these days that he’s no use to me. And I know Hughie 
won’t be using you for a long time.” 

“You want a chauffeur? For that jitney of yours? 

“Yes, I do, Fred. I’m exceedingly busy and I don’t 
want to keep mussed up driving.” 

“Me! a chauffeur! Now I know you’re crazy! Why, 
I wouldn’t drive a car for you if you was the last woman 
on earth.” 

Mrs. Morgan drew herself up. “May I ask why ?” 

“I’ll tell you why, Lizzie Morgan. It ain’t as if I hadn’t 
known you since you used to wash dishes up on the old 
ranch.” 

“I’ve never tried to deceive anybody about that,” said 
Hugh’s mother-in-law quickly. 

“Good reason why. Everybody knows it. But there’s 
nobody worth anything could hold that against you. 
Where you make a mistake is that, having washed dishes 
on a ranch where I was sinking an oil well, you ask me 
to be a chauffeur for you.” 

“That sounds to me like a mighty silly reason for turn¬ 
ing down a good job!” exclaimed Mrs. Morgan. 

“Wait a moment! I’m not through. Red Wolf had a 
little ranch up beyond the dude ranch, years ago. And 
you knew I’d prospected oil on it. And you knew Red 
Wolf was discouraged about making it pay as a ranch. 
And you and Pink went over before Red Wolf knew what 
I’d found and traded him a couple of horses and some old 
chromos and a bolt of red calico for it. And that’s how 
you and Pink got your start. And when I heard of it. 
I told the old Injun about the oil and took him over tc 
your place and tried to make him kick up a row with you, 
And he said, ‘No! A trade was a trade.’ And he never 
bothered you about it, did he?” 


THE GRAY STALLION 153 

Hugh, who had moved over to the sleeping Indian’s cot, 
waited with interest for his mother-in-law’s reply. He 
never had heard of this episode. She was standing stiffly 
erect. 

“Certainly, he didn’t bother me. Why should he?” 

Fred grunted with disgust. “Well, one reason is that 
he pretty often went hungry and cold from then on.” 

“But the oil didn’t pan out and Pink and I did work 
like dogs and made the ranch pay. An Indian couldn’t 
have done that.” 

“And now,” Fred went on, bitterly, “you and Pink are 
still at it. Won’t let him stay in the hotel while he’s sick. 
And you’ve stole his stallion.” 

“I know nothing whatever about that stallion. I didn’t 
want the Indian around. He doesn’t talk, but that squaw 
of his has said bad things about me and I had the leading 
women of the state staying in the hotel. Evidently, neither 
you nor Hughie has the slightest conception of the fore¬ 
sight and will-power it requires for a woman to come up 
from dish-washing to my position!” 

“O yes we have!” Hughie spoke grimly. “That’s 
why we are both determined to shift for ourselves. We 
don’t want to get under the chariot wheels.” 

Mrs. Morgan turned on him. “Do you mean to tell me 
that you’d turn down the backing of the women of this 
state for a little thing like that? That you really meant 
what you said the other night?” 

“Certainly I meant it,” replied Hugh. 

“What you really mean,” she said clearly, “is that you 
have come to the conclusion that you can put the deal over 
without us women. I’ll give you less than a month to 
come and ask for my help. And you’ll get no more till 
you do ask for it, Hughie! As far as you’re concerned, 
Fred All ward, you always were just a scatter-mouthed 


154 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

fool. I didn’t really want to have you drive the Ford. I 
just thought the job might stop your idiotic talk about me 
and the airplane. Good day to you both.” 

And she left the room with a great deal of dignity. 
Fred stared after her, then turned to Hugh. “Can you 
beat that? I was doing the calling down, wasn’t I? And 
she took it away from me. How did she do it?” 

Hugh shook his head, and Fred went on. “No wonder 
Jessie never amounted to shucks. She must have got dis¬ 
couraged young.” 

“Jessie was meant to amount to a great deal,” said 
Hugh. “Fred, how can we settle Pink about that stal¬ 
lion?” 

“Why should you care what he says?” demanded Fred. 

“I don’t in the least care what he says. What I want is 
to get the gray back for Red Wolf. After what I’ve just 
heard about the Morgans’ ranch, I’m more determined 
than ever.” 

“You let ’em go, Hughie,” said Red Wolf suddenly. 
“She heap smart, that woman. She makes bad medicine. 
And Pink. He not smart like her. His bad medicine is 
worse.” 

“Do you mean you aren’t going to put up a fight for 
that stallion, Red Wolf? Why, what’s come over you?” 
asked Hugh. 

“Pink, he’s making bad medicine for you about that 
horse. You let ’em go. Great Spirit, he never mean for 
Injuns to have good luck, anyhow.” 

“By Jove,” insisted Hugh, “I’ll find that gray, some 
time! See if I don’t.” 

Fred, who had been inspecting the shelves with the 
interest of one who had never seen them before, shook his 
head. “Red Wolf is right, Hughie. That whole Morgan 


THE GRAY STALLION 


i 55 

crowd always has been a hoodoo to you. Say, supposing 
I sell out all your books while you are gone?” 

“What do you plan, an auction?” Hugh laughed. 

“No, but I’ve got an idea. I’m going to fix up some 
kind of a premium system for everybody that buys a book. 
You can’t expect a person to go right out and buy a book 
just for the sake of the book. You got to bait ’em along 
somehow. Let me think for a while. And while I’m 
thinking, I’ll look out for Red Wolf. You go lie down 
and get a nap. And don’t you get up no matter who comes 
in. You might spoil a sale.” 

And with a smile and a sigh, Hugh obeyed. 

Pink turned Fort Sioux upside down for several days 
in his search for the gray stallion. 

Curiously enough to the eastern mind, the episode of the 
disappearance of the horse served to rouse to active dislike 
what before had been only resentment about Hugh’s stand 
on the Thumb Butte dam site. A plainsman even of the 
second or third generation has a peculiar attitude toward 
horse flesh. On the average, he is rather hard on horses. 
He is not so much a lover of horses as he is a constant user 
of them. They are a necessity to him, even now in the 
automobile age. And he cannot and will not tolerate any 
misappropriation of his horses. The idea today is not 
altogether tradition that a horse thief is beyond the pale 
while a man with notches on his gun may be a hero. It 
is still true on the plains that a man is only a man while 
a good horse is a mount. 

Somehow, as Pink stormed through Fort Sioux, the 
impression grew that Hugh had taken the gray stallion 
out of Pink’s stable for Red Wolf. It did not in the least 
matter about the validity of Pink’s claim to ownership. 
The horse had been roped by an Indian on free range. 
And an Indian had about the same consideration in Fort 


i 5 6 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Sioux in this case as a negro would have had under similar 
circumstances in a little southern town. 

Hugh realized this a day or so before he left for Chey¬ 
enne. When he came upon Pink in the hotel corral where 
Fossil was kept, the landlord of the Indian Massacre was 
in conference with Billy Chamberlain. The two watched 
Hugh groom his horse. Then as Hugh threw the saddle 
over Fossil's shining back, Billy said: 

“How does that cow pony like the job of breaking a 
stallion?” 

Hugh gave the barber a direct look. “What do you 
mean, Billy?” 

“I guess you know what I mean, Hughie?” 

Hugh cinched the saddle, then walked over to the fence 
where the barber perched. 

“Come now, Billy, if I'd taken that stallion, do you 
think I’d be afraid to tell Pink so ? Maybe you could make 
me stand without hitching, but honestly, do you think that 
poor fat man could?” 

Billy laughed in spite of himself, but sobered quickly 
to say, “Everybody in Fort Sioux is sore about it, 
Hughie.” 

“Are you sore, Billy?” asked Hugh. 

“I suppose if I was with you all the time I wouldn’t be. 
You could taffy up a drunken Chinaman. But I am sore.” 

“You bet he is, and he’ll be sorer before I’m through,” 
snarled Pink. 

Hugh ignored his father-in-law. “You are sore about 
the dam site, Billy. That’s fair enough. But you aren’t 
such a fool as to let Pink blind you about the horse. Let 
me tell you this, though. When I get the chance, I shall 
take the horse away from Pink and give him to Red 
Wolf.” 


THE GRAY STALLION 


i57 

“Hah!” exclaimed Billy. “Then don’t you see you’re 
no better than Pink says you are.” 

“O for Heaven’s sake!” groaned Hugh, and he 
mounted Fossil and had galloped out to the flats across 
the river before his exasperation gave way to a rueful 
chuckle. 

Hugh reached Cheyenne in a snow flurry: dry, hard 
pellets of snow, a high wind, dust, a clatter of cavalry hard 
a-gallop up the smartly paved street, a sprinkling of Derby 
hats and top coats. Cheyenne was not the frontier town 
it had been ten years before, thought Hugh as he prepared 
to storm the Governor’s fortress. Not a difficult matter 
at all. Governor Eli knew his Wyoming, and he was as 
easy to see in the Capitol in Cheyenne as he was on his 
huge ranch in the Wind River country. Within two hours 
after Hugh had left the local which brought him up from 
Fort Sioux he was sitting in the outer office of the Gov¬ 
ernor’s suite, while a secretary communicated his presence 
to the Governor. He was not kept waiting. 

Governor Eli was thin and short, with an aquiline nose, 
smooth shaven face, and keen black eyes, set a trifle too 
close together. He had a pleasant smile that disclosed even 
teeth discolored by tobacco. 

He shook hands with Hugh heartily. “From Fort 
Sioux, eh, Mr. Stewart? You’re old Bookie Smith’s 
nephew, aren’t you?” 

“Yes, I am, Governor. Did you know my uncle?” 

“For many years! A great character. Too bad we 
could never get him into politics. What is your line, Mr. 
Stewart?” 

“They call me a bone digger down in my country, sir. 
I’m a paleontologist, a hunter of fossils.” 

“Fossils, eh? Any money in it?” 

“A scant living.” 


158 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“I suppose you were your uncle's heir, though/’ the 
Governor nodded. Then at a sudden pricking of memory, 
he laughed, “Ah, I have you placed now, Stewart. Bookie’s 
will!” He pressed a button and a secretary appeared. 
“Anderson, bring me in the clipping containing Bookie 
Smith’s will. You recall that I made a dinner speech for 
the Elks about it?” 

The secretary nodded, and Governor Eli turned back to 
Hugh. “The will was exactly like Bookie. He didn’t 
like to have a fossil-digging nephew, eh?” 

“I’m afraid I was a great disappointment to the dear old 
man,” said Hugh slowly. “I was sorry, but, after all, 
there are things a man must decide for himself.” 

“Yes, there are,” agreed the Governor with ready un¬ 
derstanding. “Here is the will.” He glanced at it. “That 
last clause is what impressed me. Made a speech with that 
as a text. Wanted the Elks to back up a state traveling 
library.” He paused, reminiscently, then said abruptly, 
“And what can I do for you, Mr. Stewart?” 

“Down in our country, Governor,” began Hugh, slowly, 
“there are ten thousand acres of land on the Roaring Chief 
known as the Old Sioux Tract. As you know, Uncle 
Bookie left it to me, with certain stipulations. He knew 
how much I wanted it because, even before his death, I 
had good reason to believe it would prove to be one of the 
greatest fossil fields in the world. I suppose,” tentatively, 
“that a great fossil field means very little to you, Gov¬ 
ernor?” 

Governor Eli’s smile was apologetic. “It doesn’t ex¬ 
actly excite my avarice, Stewart. But I’m open-minded. 
Go ahead.” 

Hugh glanced from the Governor to the window, past 
which the snow twisted in great gray spirals, and plunged 
into the story now so painfully familiar to him. Governor 


THE GRAY STALLION 


i59 

Eli, obviously at first only politely interested, gradually 
focused his wandering gaze on Hugh’s face and watched 
its play of expression with concentrated attention. When 
the tale was finished, he lighted the cigar that had grown 
cold between his lips. 

“So they are trying to get their charter now. What 
have you done to block them, Mr. Stewart ?” 

Hugh had made no mention of Mrs. Morgan or of 
Mrs. Ellis. “I have done nothing that amounts to any¬ 
thing, Governor, except now, to come to you.” 

The Governor nodded. “Have you ever thought of 
going into public life, Stewart, speaking and that kind of 
thing, you know ?” 

“Yes, I’ve thought of it—only to dislike the idea more 
every time I think of it.” 

“And right, too, old man! It’s a dog’s life! God knows, 
I’ve never stopped regretting the day I let myself be 
dragged off my ranch into the legislature. Don’t you 
ever let it be done to you. Now then, we must see what 
we can do to save your fossils. Supposing you let me 
have a few days to turn round in. Where can we reach 
you? The Plains Hotel? Good! Don’t stray too far 
from the telephone.” 

Hugh rose, a pleasant feeling of accomplishment lifting 
the look of melancholy from lip and eye. He made his 
departure high with hope. What a fool he had been to 
delay coming to headquarters so long! He smiled con¬ 
temptuously at his former petticoat-ridden self and strode 
down the wind-scourged streets at sudden peace with the 
world. 

But there followed several days during which Hugh 
gradually lost the utter confidence in Governor Eli’s sym¬ 
pathy with which he had left the conference. When five 
days had passed he returned to the Capitol. The Governor 


160 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

was not in. He went back to the hotel and wrote the 
Governor a letter, to which he received a courteous reply. 
Governor Eli had the matter in hand and would tell Mr. 
Stewart of the results as soon as they were obtained. 

Hugh threw the letter in the waste-paper basket and 
began to walk the floor. An hour of this, then he found 
a list of the members of the Public Utilities Commission 
and began what were probably the bitterest weeks of all his 
political life. He found it so exceedingly difficult to pro¬ 
cure an interview with the members of the commission 
that he was not long in realizing that they knew his name 
and errand and did not wish to see him. But a man who 
could work for three months with awl and whisk broom 
to disinter the bones of an eighty-foot dinosaur was not 
to give up lightly the mere matter of getting an interview 
with a reluctant commissioner. He looked up a former 
college mate, the managing editor of one of the local news¬ 
papers, and from him received a thorough though rapid 
education as to the particular kinds of politics that caused 
one to see the commission as through a veil, darkly. He 
was also enlightened in detail as to Governor Eli’s de¬ 
cidedly confusing attitude toward the magnificent natural 
resources of the richly endowed State of Wyoming. 

The newspaper man talked much to Hugh about the 
necessity for bringing pressure to bear on the Governor 
and on the commission. 

‘‘What kind of pressure?” demanded Hugh belliger¬ 
ently. 

“Something of the nature of a swap, with a kick con¬ 
cealed in the offer,” replied his friend. “But honestly, 
Hugh, you are wasting your time. It’s too late for you 
to beat out a big concern like the Eastern Electric Corpora¬ 
tion. You go find you another fossil field, old man. 


THE GRAY STALLION 161 

Though it’s a darned shame for you to waste yourself 
digging up bones.” 

Hugh grunted and left the newspaper office with a set 
jaw. And by dint of persistent telephoning and writing, 
he finally interviewed each member of the commission. 
They were politely indifferent to his statement and his 
plea. John Houghton, Mrs. Ellis’ brother, alone, did more 
than agree to take the matter under consideration. He 
suggested that, after Christmas, Hugh appear before a 
session of the commission. He did not mention his sister, 
nor did Hugh. 

Hugh went from Houghton’s office to the Governor’s. 
There he sat for two days. It was probably that some¬ 
thing menacing behind his melancholy gaze finally pierced 
the highly weather-proofed skin of Anderson, the Gov¬ 
ernor’s secretary, or this waiting game would have brought 
no results. The Governor and his secretary were accus¬ 
tomed to it. But late in the afternoon of the second 
day, after a colloquy with his chief, Anderson peremptorily 
bade Hugh to come into the inner room. 

The Governor’s pleasant smile was lacking. “I’m sorry 
you saw fit, Mr. Stewart, to see the members of the com¬ 
mission. I thought you had placed yourself in my hands.” 

“Do you think I was wise to do so, sir?” asked Hugh. 

The Governor’s eyebrows went up. 

Hugh went on, his low voice never rising but his eyes 
growing darker as he progressed. “I am not a politician. 
Governor Eli, so it has taken me nearly a month to learn 
what any cross-roads boss evidently knows in Wyoming: 
that the natural resources of this state are threatened by a 
ring of men who are as lawless as the old Jimmie Duncan 
gang my uncle drove out of the Sioux Tract.” 

“Do you wish to name any names ?” demanded the Gov¬ 
ernor, sharply. 


162 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“I don’t mind,” answered Hugh. He pulled a list of the 
names of the Public Utilities Commission from his pocket 
and read it through. “And of course, you know, Gov¬ 
ernor Eli,” he added, “that your own name is always men¬ 
tioned as the leader of the gang.” 

The older man pulled himself slowly to his feet. He 
leaned far over his desk, his face white with anger. 
“Young man,” he said, “you’ve got more courage than you 
have sense. My advice to you is to go back to Fort Sioux, 
and to go back quick.” 

“And my advice to you,” returned Hugh, steadily, “is 
to help me save the Old Sioux Tract.” 

“You nameless fool!” exclaimed the Governor, con¬ 
temptuously. “I’d lose my temper if I weren’t sorry to 
see a man obviously meant for better things ruining him¬ 
self for a bone quarry. I can do nothing for you.” 

Hugh, who had been standing throughout the interview, 
looked slowly around the room with its handsome appoint¬ 
ments and thought with a sudden pang of regret and home¬ 
sickness of The Lariat and its shelf-lined walls. Then he 
looked the Governor over as impersonally as though he 
were a newly disclosed dinosaur. 

“Governor,” he said, “if you’d been doing my kind of 
work instead of yours, you’d have learned that it’s the 
casual happenings of life of which time is most apt to 
make the imperishable record. To speak in legend, we 
have no picture of the flaming sword that closed the Gar¬ 
den of Eden to us forever. But the cast of a worm that 
crawled over the path down which Adam and Eve fled 
before the sword is preserved to us, perfect in every detail. 
Your treatment of me is of course only one of the trivial 
details of your daily official life. Yet, I assure you that it 
would be quite like one of time’s curious ineptitudes to 
cause this particular detail to be preserved in stone and to 


THE GRAY STALLION 163 

permit some of the really big achievements of your career 
to be lost forever.” 

“What are you doing? Threatening me?” sneered 
Governor Eli. 

“Threateningyou? No!” replied Hugh. “Perhaps I’m 
merely trying to make you see life as I see it—as a span 
so appallingly short that it staggers me to think of the— 
the ineptitudes if you will—with which we deliberately 
crowd our days.” He suddenly twisted his long brown 
hands together and added, as if he were alone. “Life, so 
unimportant and of such staggering moment to each of 
us.” 

Governor Eli scowled. Hugh caught the scowl, and 
again his gray eyes darkened. 

“So you will not help me, Governor Eli ?” 

The Governor pressed the desk button furiously. To 
the secretary who appeared immediately he said, “Mr. 
Stewart has finished this and any other interview with 
me.” 

“Well,” sighed Hugh, “it’s too bad.” And he followed 
Anderson from the room. 

There seemed for the time nothing further to be done. 
He could not appear before the commission until after 
the Christmas holidays, and he knew that the granting of 
the charter to the Eastern Electric Corporation would be 
held up until after that hearing, thanks to Mrs. Ellis. And 
so, after a solitary Thanksgiving dinner in the hotel, Hugh 
returned to The Lariat. 

Fred Allward welcomed him back. The little man had 
recovered in good shape from his accident, but was de¬ 
cidedly hostile to the idea of ever going within hailing dis¬ 
tance of an airplane again. 

“But what am I going to do with that wreck you wished 
on me, Fred?” asked Hugh. 


164 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Marten’s got it in running shape again,’’ said Fred. 
“I guess I can sell it for you. I can sell most anything, 
by heck. I sold that set of the Elsie books to a cowman 
from the Jackson Hole country. I told him all the public 
libraries had suppressed ’em and he couldn’t buy ’em fast 
enough. What’s the news up at Cheyenne, Hughie?’’ 

Hugh recounted his experiences and Fred swallowed 
tobacco juice and listened with indignant but absorbed 
interest. 

“I’m going up there in January when you go,’’ he said, 
when Hugh had finished. “Some of them fellows will be 
shooting you.’’ 

“You take care of The Lariat, Fred. You’re a better 
salesman than either Uncle Bookie or I.” 

Fred nodded complacently. “Beats hell, don’t it?’’ 

“How are things at the Indian Massacre?’’ asked Hugh. 

“Ain’t been near ’em. But, Hughie, Pink’s built up a 
lot of mean feeling in town about you. Of course, the 
fact that you’re keeping money away from the town is at 
the bottom of it.’’ 

“When I came out of the station today,” said Hugh, 
“Billy Chamberlain’s boy and some others I didn’t know 
yelled ‘Gray Stallion! Gray Stallion!’ at me. Pink hasn’t 
been keeping that fool thing going, has he? The man is 
crazy.” 

“Crazy or not,” returned Fred, “he’s p’ison mad. He 
sees you spoiling his one big chance, and he’s going to load 
you with all the mud you can carry.” 

Hughie grunted enigmatically, then asked, “Have you 
seen Jessie?” 

“Yes, she’s asked me on the street a couple of times 
when you were coming back. She’s still up at the ranch, 
bookkeeping and such, she said. She didn’t tell me so, 
but Principal Jones says she has broke with her father. 


THE GRAY STALLION 


165 

Wait a minute! Jones is just crossing the street. Seems 
like he’s the only friend but me and Red Wolf you got in 
Fort Sioux.” * 

Principal Jones came in with a broad smile. “Well, 
Hughie! Glad to see you back. How are things in Chey¬ 
enne?” 

Hugh shook hands and returned the smile. “Principal, 

I learned more about politics on this trip to Cheyenne than 
in all my life before.” 

The old schoolmaster shook his head ruefully. “I was 
afraid of that. Did you run afoul of Grafton?” 

“No, I didn’t see him. But I heard that he’d gone back 
to Chicago. Look here, Principal, aren’t you going to 
hurt your standing in Fort Sioux by coming in here?” 

The old man laughed. “Pshaw, Hughie! Don’t you 
know that a schoolmaster hasn’t either standing or sex? 
He’s like a preacher. Sort of a tolerated nuisance.— 
Jokes aside, I’d like to help you, Hughie, if you can tell 
me how.” 

“I’ll certainly tell you how, as soon as I learn a little 
more of the ropes,” returned Hugh gratefully. “Sit down, 
won’t you? It’s Saturday and you’re free.” 

“Say, Principal,” said Fred, noisily replenishing the 
heater, “you tell Hughie about that row you heard Jessie 
had with Pink. I was just starting on it myself when you 
come in.” 

The schoolmaster looked at Hugh questioningly. Every 
one, of course, knew that Jessie and Hugh were living 
separate lives, yet even this man, who had spanked the 
geologist many times, hesitated to appear to recognize the 
separation. 

“Go on! Go on!” urged Fred. “Don’t pay no attention 
to Hughie. I want him to know it.” 

“Well,” said Principal Jones, “Jessie came over to the 


166 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

schoolhouse one day to see me about their having a little 
school up in the ranch. What with the little Indians and 
the help’s children, they’ve got a right to one. And while 
she was talking to me about this, Pink comes stamping in. 
'Jess!’ he roars, ‘how come that you never come to the 
hotel to see your mother and me any more ?’ 

“ ‘I don’t like what you’ve been doing to Hughie,’ says 
Jessie. 

“ ‘And I don’t like what Hughie’s done to you,’ roars 
Pink. ‘Ain’t you got any pride?’ 

“ ‘I’ve got plenty,’ replies Jessie, ‘but what’s between 
Hughie and me is between us and nobody else.’ 

“She was perfectly cool, you understand, while Pink as 
usual was booming like a bull. 

“ ‘Between you and him and that Miriam Page, you 
mean!’ he comes back. ‘Well, if you ain’t got no sense 
of shame, I have! In the good old days I’d have shot him. 
I may do it yet. But I’ve got one satisfaction. I’ve put 
a brand into him he’ll never lose. He’ll be marked as the 
Gray Stallion till he dies!’ 

“Jessie got up slowly, but you could see that she was 
angry enough to knock him down. I think she could have, 
too. She is six inches taller than he is and hard muscled 
as a range rider. But she held herself in and she says, 
slow—you know how lazy her voice is sometimes—‘Dad, 
that’s the most low-down thing I’ve ever known you to do, 
and you’ve done many of them. And if you don’t go to 
work at once to undo the harm you’ve done to him by it, 
I swear you and I break now, for good and all!’ 

“Pink, of course, went crazy for a minute. It was all 
bluster, but he didn’t give in, and it wound up by her 
ordering him out of my office as cool as if he was the 
hired help. He went too, and she turned round and began 
discussing the school again with me. Jessie has changed 


THE GRAY STALLION 


167 

and grown. Life has strange ways of forcing us to de¬ 
velop our better selves. I didn’t say anything about the 
interview except as Jessie was going to suggest that if 
she’d had the loyalty to you in years gone by that she had 
now, things might have been different. She gave me a 
quick little nod. That of course isn’t saying, Hughie, that 
I approve of your relation with Miriam Page, because I 
don’t. But I understand it.” 

Fred suddenly flared up. “Don’t you pick at Hughie 
about that. You ain’t lived with him as I have and seen 
Jessie make fun of him and his work in front of people 
and jab at him about not being a man. She done it for 
years till she got him so he had his back up all the time. 
He wouldn’t have been half so single scented after fossils 
if she hadn’t been so plumb ornery about it. I think he’s 
a damn fool about Miriam Page, but all the same-” 

“Hold on, Fred,” said Hugh, quietly. “After all, my 
private life is private, isn’t it?” 

“Nobody’s life is private!” exclaimed the schoolmaster. 
“You, of all people in Fort Sioux, Hughie, never have had 
any private life and never can have.” 

“I don’t see why not!” ejaculated Hugh. 

“It’s plain enough. Well, I just dropped in on my way 
to get a hair-cut. Are you going back to Cheyenne soon, 
Hughie?” 

“After Christmas. I don’t say much, Principal, but 
I’m a whole lot bucked up to know you’re with me.” 

The old man nodded. “Now I’ll go over and quarrel 
with Billy Chamberlain about you.” 



CHAPTER IX 


THE HEARING 

T HE month dragged. Hugh received long letters 
from Miriam and wrote even longer ones in return. 
Miriam made no attempt to direct Hugh’s effort to save 
his fossil field. But she urged him on to the fight by a 
sympathy that intoxicated him as regularly as her letters 
came. But in spite of the letters the days in The Lariat 
were long. The big snows that arrived with December 
prevented any one from the outlying ranches from visiting 
Fort Sioux, and except for Principal Jones and Red Wolf, 
The Lariat was unpatronized. The old Indian’s efforts to 
cheer Hugh up were unceasing. Not a week passed that 
he did not come prowling into the shop with some curious 
memento of the tribe and carry on a long, haggling barter 
for a book. The trading was, to say the least, unique and 
was the only bright spot in the long month. Hugh 
always carried on the negotiations himself, for the old 
Sioux openly scorned doing business with Fred. Thev 
traded a pair of polished buffalo horns for a copy of 
Artemus Ward. A beaded “kinne-ki-nick” bag for a 
cheap and very gaudily bound reproduction of Hogarth’s 
Rake's Progress. A buckskin belt and a dilapidated war 
bonnet for a second-hand set entitled, Pictorial History 
of the Civil War. The final triumph for both sides, how¬ 
ever, was the trading of a necklace made up of teeth—bear 
teeth, buffalo teeth, snake fangs, the teeth of Red Wolf’s 
father and of his first wife and of several of his own, all 
strung on a deer sinew, as pliable as silk—for a copy of 

168 


THE HEARING 


169 

the life of Queen Victoria. The old chief fell violently 
in love with a picture of the old queen at her stoutest and 
would have bartered his tepee, containing his present 
squaw, if it had been necessary, to close the bargain. 

The day after Christmas, Hugh returned to Cheyenne, 
and within two days’ time he had procured an appointment 
to present his case before the commission. His was the 
first business brought up when the morning session was 
called. John Houghton introduced Hugh to the members 
and he was invited to join the group around the mahogany 
table. 

This was quite a different matter from telling his tale 
to the barber-shop group, or to Miriam, or to the Con¬ 
servation and Children’s Code Committees. These were 
hard-headed, experienced politicians, all of whom had ex¬ 
pressed an entire impatience with Hugh’s plea. He had 
thought constantly in the past month of what he could say 
that might reach them. He knew that the scientific plea 
would not touch them. He knew that there could be no 
appeal to their state pride. Their record precluded the 
possibility of their having any. He believed that there 
was small chance of what Mrs. Morgan had called 
his personality beguiling them. And he sat forward in 
the chair they had given him at the table, and opened 
his mouth to speak without any real idea of what he 
would say. 

And he began, to his own astonishment, to talk of his 
Uncle Bookie. Every man at the table had known the 
former owner of The Lariat. Old Charley Whitson, 
the chairman, had ridden herd for Bookie before the old 
ranch had been turned over to dudes. John Houghton 
had purloined a brood mare, three cows and a bull from 
Bookie thirty years before and had thus gotten a start in 
life. Fred had told this to Hugh in the month just passed. 


170 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

And there was not a man among them who had not visited 
the wise old man who had dreamed dreams in The Lariat. 

Hugh told them about his discovery of the cave and of 
Bookie’s trip to his Christmas camp. With the accuracy 
of memory that was partly born in him and was partly the 
result of his scientific training he repeated the long con¬ 
versation between himself and Bookie, appalled as he did 
so by the sudden revelation to himself of his own egoism. 
When he told of his findings in the cave and of Jimmie 
Duncan’s skeleton there was a sudden movement and mur¬ 
mur from his hearers. Hugh paused. He was not sure 
how far to go. 

“What did you do with him?” demanded Whitson. 
“I knew that fellow.” 

With sudden inspiration, Hugh decided to have no 
reticences. “What I say will be treated as entirely con¬ 
fidential and not even be inscribed on the minutes?” he 
asked. 

Old Whitson turned to the young woman who was 
busily inscribing pot hooks in a notebook. 

“Miss Dick, skeedaddle!” he said, shortly. 

Miss Dick left the room with the nonchalant air of 
doing exactly what she had intended to do anyhow. 

“Now, Stewart, shoot and shoot straight,” said the 
chairman. “We’ll have some straight man’s talk at this 
session. If any of you old timers want to get out, get out 
now, because I don’t opine I want to be interrupted while 
I’m digging up these three several kinds of old bones 1” 

A grin went round the table, but nobody moved except 
to relight cigars. 

“I’ll tell you what I did with Jimmie Duncan’s bones,” 
said Hugh slowly. “But first, I’ll explain what Uncle 
Bookie said to me when I told him that the old cattle 
runner was below. He said, ‘Hughie, I left Jimmie Dun- 


THE HEARING 


171 

can down there twenty-three years ago this Christmas/ ” 

“Hah!” ejaculated old Whitson, spitting into the brass 
cuspidor beside his chair. “Go on, Stewart.” 

“I asked, ‘Did you put a notch on your gun, Uncle 
Bookie ?’ ” 

“ ‘You can bet I did, Hughie, a deep one!’ 

“ ‘Why, Uncle Bookie?’ 

“ ‘Because he was a skunk.’ 

“ ‘Will you tell me about it, Uncle Bookie?’ I asked. 

“He nodded. ‘I’ll try. Hughie,’ he said, ‘I loved your 
mother from the time she came out here with your poor, 
one-lunged dad-’ ” 

Hugh went on in his gentle way to tell of Bookie’s 
tragic love story. Not an eye moved from his face as he 
continued. “And so, when I returned to the cave the next 
day, I knew what Jimmie Duncan had done. I built a big 
fire in the remains of the old fireplace and I kicked his 
bones into the flames. And I threw the ashes out into 
the Roaring Chief.” 

There was silence. 

“I am telling you all this,” Hugh finally went on, 
“because I want you to feel that the Old Sioux Tract and 
Uncle Bookie are inseparably connected in my mind.” 

“And yet,” said John Houghton, “you want to keep that 
tract to dig the fossils out of. And your Uncle was sore 
about fossils.” 

A quick nod went round the table, in which Hugh 
soberly joined. 

“One point at a time, gentlemen. Yes, I was a keen 
disappointment to Uncle Bookie.” Hugh looked miser¬ 
ably out the window, flecked across by a rattling cotton¬ 
wood tree. “I would have changed it if I could. But a 
cow pony with all the good will in the world can’t make 
himself into a race horse, and if he’s a horse with sense he 



172 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

won’t try. Uncle Bookie felt that himself. Toward the 
last, he didn’t talk so much to me about my work as he did 
about my—well, I suppose I might say, my character. He 
had more real, disinterested fondness for Wyoming than 
any native son I ever met. I think his biggest disappoint¬ 
ment in me was that I didn’t show the same kind of 
fondness.” 

Hugh paused. It was extraordinarily painful, this lay¬ 
ing his soul bare before these hard-faced men. But he 
knew of no other method. 

“It was a fondness that none of you and certainly not 
I have ever felt. It was a feeling so strong that what 
embittered his deathbed was the realization that he had 
not done his limit for Wyoming. I don’t blame him 
myself for not doing more. He was a clean-handed man. 
He stood for civic decency and enforced it at the gun 
point if necessary. He believed he couldn’t mix in state 
politics without dirtying his hands. He did all he could 
for Wyoming up to that point.” 

Again Hugh stopped while he drew on the deeps within. 
And still his auditors, angered though they may have 
been, made no attempt to interrupt Hugh’s low-voiced 
monologue. 

“I am saying to you now,” suddenly lifting his head 
and speaking directly at Whitson, his beautiful, ardent 
mouth twisted half tragically, “that not until I repeated 
our conversation to you this morning have I realized 
what my absorption in myself must have meant to Uncle 
Bookie. And yet, observe that after all, knowing that 
I would use it as a world fossil field, he did put it within 
my power to control the Old Sioux Tract. This tract that 
for nearly a quarter of a century had had such a poignant 
significance to him, that was bound up with his early fight 
to make Wyoming a law-abiding state, with the killing 


THE HEARING 


i73 

that must have been a terrible memory to him and, most 
of all, with the deep hurt of having it spurned by the 
woman he loved, who preferred to die in poverty and 
dependence rather than take from him the gift won by 
him at such soul cost. This is the tract that he turned 
over to me. I believe that I can turn it to such noble 
usage that it will satisfy all Uncle Bookie's hurts—as to 
Duncan, as to my mother, as to me. Force the Eastern 
Electric Corporation to build its dam elsewhere, gentle¬ 
men. Let me make a monument to Uncle Bookie of the 
Old Sioux Tract.” 

Old Whitson heaved a great sigh. “Those were the 
days! Men was men in those days. So that’s what 
became of Jimmie Duncan! Huh!” 

John Houghton spoke: “Grafton, the Eastern Corpo¬ 
ration’s man, says the only other feasible point to build 
the dam is fifteen miles on up the Roaring Chief. He says 
what with the frightful difficulty that would be added in 
transportation costs—it’s a god-awful spot to reach from 
the railroad—and in the doubling of the size of the dam 
as would have to be done at that point, it would more than 
double the cost of the project, and it’s not to be thought of. 
The Corporation has reached its limit in costs with the 
dam at Thumb Butte.” 

Whitson scratched a scraggly chin with a paper knife 
and renewed his plug. “Why ain’t it monument enough 
to Bookie to let the Old Sioux Tract contribute to the 
producing of water power for his section of Wyoming?” 
he asked. 

Hugh looked at the chairman with such a combination 
of anger and disgust in eye and lip that the old man turned 
hastily to the other members of the commission. 

“Any other of you folks got anything to say?” 

They had and they said it at considerable length. Hugh 


174 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

made no attempt to follow the details of their arguments. 
He was convinced that they had been bought and paid 
for. When each member had said his say, the chairman 
turned to Hugh: 

“Sorry, Stewart. You’ve given us a pretty good idea 
of how you feel and how old Bookie felt. But to go up 
against this Eastern Electric Corporation so it would give 
up building the Fort Sioux dam would be about the most 
unpopular thing this commission could do in this state.” 

“What’s that got to do with it?” demanded Hugh. 
Then he bit his lip. Not for one moment did he propose 
to lose his self-control. “Is this answer final?” he asked 
quietly. 

Whitson looked around the table. “I guess it is, son. 
As far as I’m concerned, I’m sorry it has to be so. I was 
fond of Bookie, and as near as I can judge you are extra 
prime quality yourself, in spite of your job. But business 
and politics can’t mix with science.” 

Hugh rose slowly. “I think I ought to warn you,” he 
said, “that this is only the beginning of my fight.” 

An amused smile should have crossed each face, but 
curiously enough it did not. There was a controlled 
power in Hugh’s eyes that caused Whitson to say: 

“Gentlemen, not because we are scared of the threat, 
but because we’d like to give Bookie’s nephew a sporting 
chance, let’s hold up delivering that charter till Easter.” 

A nod went round the table. Whitson turned to Hugh 
and said, with a show of courtesy strange to him, “That’s 
the best we can do for you, Mr. Stewart.” 

Hugh bowed and left the room. 

He returned to Fort Sioux that night. He was bitterly 
disappointed, but not discouraged. All the next day, and 
until well into the following night, he contemplated what 
he felt to be the most drastic decision of his life. With a 


THE HEARING 


x 75 

new clarity of vision gained by his experiences at the 
Capitol, he faced facts about himself that he never before 
had faced. Pacing the floor of the room, lined with the 
volumes old Bookie had loved so well, the room where less 
than a year before he had decided to make what he believed 
to be the supreme sacrifice of his life, he found life 
demanding of him a sacrifice infinitely greater, infinitely 
more difficult. He went to bed deeply absorbed in the 
contemplation of this sacrifice and woke early to lie watch¬ 
ing Fred putter at the starting of the heater fire, and to 
listen to the broken ice grind and crash in the swift- 
moving river, with a sense of loss and of destiny upon him 
difficult to adjust to each other. 

The morning was about half spent when Red Wolf 
came in. He only grunted when Hugh asked him, smiling, 
what the trade was to be that day, and stood for a long 
time, with his back to the heater, glowering at Hugh with 
a face quite expressionless except for the burning eyes. 

“What’s eating you, Red Wolf?” Fred finally de¬ 
manded. 

The Indian turned to Hugh. “Winter, it not last long, 
this year,” he said. “Not much snow. Not any snow any 
more.” 

“There’s been an unusual amount of snow up on the 
plains, Red Wolf,” protested Hugh. 

“Yes, but not cold. Soon go. And heap little snow 
down here. Ice usually go out of river in March. Look! 
Ice going out of river now.” 

“What about it, Red Wolf ?” Hugh eyed his old friend 
keenly, realizing that in his own way and his own time the 
Indian would tell him something he considered important. 

“Most times, Fort Sioux folks, they no try go up river 
canyon in winter. Too hard work. You remember, they 


176 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

say you heap fool last year, maybe get killed working in 
cave in winter?” 

“I remember,” said Hugh. ‘'Keep out of it for a 
minute, Fred,” as the little man muttered impatiently. 

“But this year,” Red Wolf went on imperturbably, 
“folks they go up river, they find no snow on your trail 
to cave, they go in cave.” 

“What did they do there !” exclaimed Hugh. 

“Injun can’t go in cave. You know that, Hughie! But 
I see big door broke out, from this side of river when I 
ride down this morning.” 

Hugh, his cheeks flushing, put a restraining hand on 
Fred’s shoulder. “What else did you see, Red Wolf?” 

“Broken boxes on trail.” 

“God! That’s too much!” cried Hugh. “Come on, 
Red Wolf. I’m going up there. Fred, you watch the 
store.” 

“Who helped save that critter? Was it Red Wolf?” 
shouted Fred. “Let him mind shop!” 

A look of pleased surprise came to Red Wolf’s eyes. 
“I sell ’em books,” he said. “You take Fred. He go in 
cave with you.” 

Hugh nodded, strapped on his gun, and pulled on his 
mackinaw. 

“Now, Red Wolf,” said Fred, impressively, “don’t sell 
anything. Just take orders for ’em. You don’t sabez how 
to sell books. See! You just let folks tell you what they 
want. And I’ll fix ’em up when I get back.” 

“Fred, you go heap to hell,” grunted the Indian, remov¬ 
ing his mackinaw and walking behind the counter to stand 
leaning against the bookcases in close imitation of Hugh’s 
favorite attitude. 

Fred followed Hugh hastily to the corral. 

. There was too much ice in the river to risk a boat. The 


THE HEARING 


177 

two men decided to use the horses along the river edge as 
far as they could go and then to crawl along the face of the 
canyon until they reached the trail to the cave. They 
saddled quickly, and silently trotted out of town to the 
bridge. It was here that they met Jessie. She pulled up 
Magpie. 

“Hello, Hughie! What luck did you have in Chey¬ 
enne?” 

“None at all. And it looks as if ill luck were pursuing 
me here, too.” 

“What’s happened, Hughie?” 

“Red Wolf reports that some one has broken into the 
cave where I’d left the triceratops, and from what he 
says, I think they’ve wantonly destroyed the specimen. 
We’re going up there.” Hugh spurred Fossil and rode 
off abruptly. 

A small boy, standing on the bridge watching the chaos 
of ice in the river, waited until Hugh had crossed, then 
put his hands to his mouth and shouted lustily, “Gray 
stallion! O gray stallion!” 

Hugh looked back and saw Jessie jump from her horse 
and box the youngster’s ears. Fred laughed and Hugh 
thought, “I wonder what Miriam would do about that 
particular deviltry of Pink’s.” Then he gave his mind 
to the anxiety at hand. 

They were able to work their horses within a possible 
two miles of the trail. When, however, the canyon wall 
crowded the river too closely for safe riding, they hobbled 
their mounts and began the difficult climb along the wall. 
It was midaftemoon when they made the trail, and after 
a few moments’ rest began the upward climb. Halfway 
up they came upon a broken box, from which protruded 
a piece of rib bone, hacked and mangled beyond repair. 
After a hasty examination, they continued to climb, to be 





178 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

brought to pause again and again by portions of the speci¬ 
men, wantonly injured and tumbled upon the path. 

Neither man spoke until they reached the ledge. The 
door had been chopped to pieces, but the crude doorframe 
was intact and on one side of it was scrawled with char¬ 
coal, “For the gray stallion.” 

Fred uttered an oath. But still Hugh did not speak. 
He lighted a candle and led the way within the cave. Here 
the destruction was complete. The floor was littered 
with the broken and mingled bones of the ancient Indian 
warriors and of the triceratops. The fireplace and the 
altar had been eradicated. Hugh, holding the candle at 
arm’s length above his head, strode up and down the cave, 
his face set, his jaw white. Fred followed at his heels, 
for once not daring to speak. At length Hugh was driven 
by very weariness to pause. He leaned against the door¬ 
frame and looked at Fred. 

“Who could have done it! Why did they do it? What 
have I done to deserve it?” 

“Done! Done! Why, you’ve done what a guy like 
Pink or Billy Chamberlain can’t excuse you for. You’ve 
used your brains to make yourself too smart for them to 
keep up with. I’ll get ’em for this! God! You’ll see! 
I’ll get ’em.” 

“There’s no proof they did it,” said Hugh. “We won’t 
get anywhere by going crazy. Let’s gather up the wood 
and make a fire where the chimney was and go over this 
thing carefully. There must be some kind of a clue to 
pick up. Calm down, Fred. The men that did this are 
going to suffer, but we’re not going to make any bad 
breaks.” 

They built a fire and by its light and that of the candle 
searched diligently for clues to the identity of the mis¬ 
creants. There were myriad footprints in the sand and 


THE HEARING 


179 

dust. But greater skill than that possessed by Hugh or 
Fred was required to discover their significance. After 
a prolonged effort, Hugh sat down by the fire on a 
broken box. 

“Fred,” he said, “I’m hard hit by this!” 

“Don’t I know that?” raved Fred. “Let me get my 
hands on ’em. Let me!” 

“It’s more than that sort of thing will satisfy,” mut¬ 
tered Hugh, leaning his head wearily on his hand. 
“Fred,” abruptly, “do me one more favor. Go on back 
to The Lariat and leave me here for the night.” 

“What’s the idea?” demanded Fred in astonishment. 

“I want to be alone,” replied Hugh. “Fred, old man, 
this thing is a sort of a last straw with me. I’m—I’m 
hard hit. And I want to be alone to get on top of myself 
again.” 

“But you haven’t got anything to eat.” 

“I don’t want anything. I’ll come down in the 
morning.” 

Fred scratched his chin and sighed. “Well, you’re the 
boss. I’ll take the horses along and be back up to meet 
you in the morning.” 

Hugh nodded and Fred, without further comment or 
protest, hurried from the cave to take advantage of the 
remainder of the daylight in the perilous passage along 
the river’s edge. 

Hugh sat before the fire, head on hands. It did not 
seem to him that he could endure the thought of the loss 
of the marvelous specimen. And he dared not return to 
Fort Sioux until he had faced this new trouble and had 
got himself well in hand. Yet for a long time he could 
only sit in impotent wrath over the senseless destruction 
of a thing so invaluable. All the outraged scientist was 
uppermost in him now. He had no thought of Miriam, 


180 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

of the Old Sioux Tract or of the problem he had been 
facing the night before. 

Darkness had fallen completely when above the crack¬ 
ling of the fire he caught the sound of footsteps without. 
He listened intently, his hand slipping automatically to his 
hip. It would have gone ill with Pink had he appeared 
at that moment in the cave opening. But it was not Pink. 
It was his daughter, Jessie. She paused in the doorway, 
breathing rapidly, her face flushed, her eyes heavily 
shadowed in the flickering light. After a moment she 
discerned Hugh and she moved forward. 

“I was coming up to see what the trouble was. Fred 
tried to stop me, so don’t blame him. And I brought 
some lunch. I noticed you had nothing but your canteen 
this morning. Don’t look at me so, Hughie.” 

Hugh rubbed his hand across his forehead. “I suppose 
you wanted to do me a kindness, Jessie. But I’d have 
been better off alone.” 

'‘I’ll leave now, if you tell me to!” 

“No. It would be dangerous for you to try to get out 
in the dark. I can’t let you risk it, as you probably very 
well knew.” 

A slight smile, unnoticed by Hugh, flickered on Jessie’s 
face for a moment, then she put a bundle of sandwiches 
on the box beside Hugh, made herself a seat before the 
fire opposite him, and sat down in her own way, appar¬ 
ently immovable. A deep contrast to Hugh’s restlessness. 
But silent and motionless as she was, she was deeply per¬ 
turbing to Hugh. He found it impossible to return to the 
deep abstraction in which he had lost himself before she 
came. And he resented it. If any woman were to sit 
opposite him it should be Miriam. And only Miriam 
could have sounded the depths of his anger and pain 
with him. 


THE HEARING 


181 


After a time he found himself wondering why he could 
not go on with his thoughts as though she were not there. 
There had been a time when he could forget her though 
she were within hand touch, so complete had been the 
inner life he had built up for himself. But now he realized 
that with the coming of Miriam, that time had passed. It 
was impossible to ignore Jessie now. She interfered too 
much with his passionate pursuit of happiness. 

She was looking at the fire and he stared at her profile. 
Something had been at work during the past year, refining 
the strength of Jessie’s face into a beauty that Hugh now 
grudgingly acknowledged to himself. She turned and 
caught his glance. 

“Better eat your sandwiches, Hughie,” she said. 

Hugh ignored the suggestion. “Jessie!” he cried. 
“How can you intrude on me this way! You know I’m 
in love with Miriam. You know it’s Miriam and not you 
that I’d wish to be here. Why can’t you care for Johnny 
Parnell and let me alone?” 

Jessie looked at him steadily. “I have a right to be 
here,” she said, in a strained voice. 

“A right!” cried Hugh. “Your rights ceased years 
ago, when you sneered at me because you found you 
couldn’t bend me to your lazy will.” 

“I was a fool!” exclaimed Jessie. “How many times 
do you want me to admit it?” 

“I don’t want you to admit it at all. I just want you 
to leave me alone. It’s not much to ask, is it, after what 
you and your father and mother have done to me?” 

“No,” replied Jessie, sadly. “It’s not much to ask 
of me.” 

Hugh eyed her, still resentfully. “With your brain and 
your strength you might so easily have kept on being all 
the world to me. And you didn’t care, Jessie, you didn’t 


182 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

care, until another woman took your place! That hurts 
me. It shouldn’t. But it does.” 

Jessie did not reply, and with a desire for speech upon 
him as strong as hitherto had been the desire for silence, 
Hugh went on. 

“Life is too short to be so filled with mistakes. My 
mistakes have been more than yours. But, at least at first, 
I was not mistaken about the importance of love in a 
man’s life and work. Or a woman’s. If you had loved 
me, your love would have weaned you from your mother 
and have made a big woman of you. And now it’s too 
late. It’s too late. We learn all of it when we are too old 
to enjoy the results of our enlightenment. I knew this to 
be so at Cheyenne.” He paused. 

“What happened to make you know it at Cheyenne?” 
asked Jessie. 

“It was old Whitson made me think of it,” returned 
Hugh, and suddenly, without conscious volition on his 
part, he began to pour out to her the story of his experi¬ 
ences at the state capital. 

She was so silent, so motionless that Hugh was scarcely 
conscious that he was speaking aloud. When he had 
finished, she let the silence last for a long time before she 
said, softly: 

“Hughie, if Miriam Page were out of the way, I could 
make you care for me as much as ever.” 

She leaned toward him in the firelight and for a moment 
Hugh looked deep into her blue eyes. But he only shook 
his head and said sadly, “Too late, Jessie! The old thrill 
is gone. Make no mistake. I love Miriam as I never 
could love a woman again.” 

Suddenly Jessie moved from her place opposite him and 
with a gesture of abandonment infinitely pathetic in its 
helplessness she dropped on the floor of the cave beside 


THE HEARING 183 

him, and laying her head on his knee she burst into 
racking sobs. 

“Hughie! Hughie! My punishment is greater than 
I can bear!” 

Hugh, his face lined with pain, looked down on the 
mass of chestnut braids. 

“For God’s sake, Jessie, don’t! You make me feel like 
a brute. What do you want me to do? Pretend to love 
you when I don’t?” 

But Jessie was beyond conversation. She wept on and 
on as if by tears she sought to wash out the mistakes of 
her selfish girlhood. After a moment or two, Hugh made 
no attempt to speak. He sat rigidly staring at her, pain, 
regret, resentment struggling for mastery within him. It 
seemed to him a very long time before Jessie raised her 
head and looking up into his face said: 

“Hughie, I suppose that selfishness wrecks more lives 
than anything else in the world. My own has wrecked 
me and your own selfishness will ruin you if you don’t get 
a different view of life.” 

“I can’t force myself to do the impossible,” replied 
Hugh. 

Jessie returned slowly to her old seat. Hugh replen¬ 
ished the fire, then leaned wearily against the warm wall 
behind him and closed his eyes. Gradually his long body 
sagged in slumber. He had been asleep for some time 
when Jessie looked at her watch. It was past midnight 
and the moon was riding high over the river. After a 
moment’s gazing she crossed over to look at Hugh, breath¬ 
ing heavily against the wall. She kissed him softly on the 
lips and, stepping lightly, left the cave. 

The sun was well up when Hugh made his way around 
a jutting rock to the spot where Fred had agreed to meet 
him with the horses. Fred was there. Also Pink Mor- 


184 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

gan. Both men were sitting their horses, but Pink was 
evidently present under duress, for Fred had an ancient 
six-shooter resting on his left arm. 

“I brought Pink along, Hughie,” said Fred. ^Picked 
him up down by the bridge.” 

“Why did you do that?” asked Hugh. 

“I think he can tell us what happened up in the Dinosaur 
Cave. He went up to see if you had hid the gray stallion 
there and he got peevish and broke up the whole works. 
I know him.” 

Hugh looked at Pink carefully and was entirely con¬ 
vinced as to his guilt. But he felt sure it would only be a 
waste of time to try to prove the matter. However, Pink 
was a blunderer and might possibly be surprised into some 
sort of admission. 

“Who helped you, Pink?” he asked suddenly. “You 
couldn’t have done all the wrecking.” 

Pink grunted. 

Fred shifted his gun and mimicked Pink’s grunt. 
“Sounds like the hog you are,” he said. “Gosh, but I’d 
like to make sausage of you. Wish you’d worked to git 
out just one of them dinosaurs and you might have some 
inkling of what scientists like me and Hughie do. You 
fat, bone-headed, salmon-faced, slavering keeper of a fifth- 
rate hotel. If I was Hughie I’d git the price of that 
dinosaur out of you if I had to burn down your boarding¬ 
house and collect the insurance. I always did hate you, 
Pink.” 

“That’s all right,” said Pink, with astounding calm. 
“I’ve got you two going. It’s worth taking your insults 
for. Keep it up, Fred. I like to hear you rave.” He 
dangled his feet comfortably free of the stirrups and 
wiped his nose on the back of his mitten. 

Fred breathed deep and the hand that held the old gun 


THE HEARING 


185 

twitched uneasily. Hugh stared at Pink as if he never 
before had seen him. His big blond hulk bore little 
resemblance to Jessie, yet he was Jessie’s father. Mrs. 
Morgan’s little bird-like frame, too, bore little of the look 
of Jessie. Yet the combination of the twain had produced 
the fine, clean-cut strength that was Jessie’s. 

Hugh wanted to kill Pink. Quite coolly and clearly he 
stared at him, wondering at his paternity of Jessie and 
contemplating sending a bullet through his great chest. 
Fred smiled sardonically as his gaze traveled from the 
slow look of fury in Hugh’s face to the pallor that was 
gradually spreading over Pink’s. 

“If I shoot you,” Hugh’s low voice was distinct above 
the rush of the river, “at the very worst they’d give me a 
life sentence for it. And that would solve all my prob¬ 
lems. Fred, I think I’ll do it.” He put his hand to 
his hip. 

Pink gave a howl and dug his horse’s belly with the 
spurs. The horse reared. Fred sent a shot above Pink’s 
head. 

“We’ve got you, Pink. Let your horse go to sleep 
again,” he said. 

Pink brought the horse to its former position and sat 
rigidly in the saddle. “If I’d had a gun, you’d never have 
tried this on me, you dogy-faced coyotes,” he snarled. 

Hugh, keeping his hand on his hip, continued to eye 
Pink thoughtfully. This was Jessie’s father. Jessie, who 
the night before had drenched his knees with her tears, 
because he no longer loved her. Well, if he no longer 
loved her, why hesitate over killing Pink ? 

She had been his wife. He had loved her madly, with 
an abandon that his mature years could not give to 
Miriam. Deep locked in his lonely and unhappy heart, 
the memory of that first year with Jessie was kept sacred 


186 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

by Hugh. He had not looked at it for years. And now, 
all undesired and uninvited, its subtle fragrance rose to 
shake his will. 

Pink was her father. 

Hugh, white to the lips, took his hand from his gun. 
“Pink,” he said, “you ride on down the trail. In the future, 
you let me alone.” 

“O no!” exclaimed Fred. “He ain’t going to get off 
like that. Not after what he’s done. I got a right to say 
something, haven’t I, Hughie?” 

“Yes, you have, Fred,” agreed Hugh. “Go ahead and 
say it.” 

“I want the story of what he done to that dinosaur and 
who helped him.” 

“Fred,” said Hugh, “I wish you’d let it go. It can’t 
bring the triceratops back and I’d rather not know who 
had a hand in it. I’ve finished this fight. All that I want 
of Pink is that he lets me alone.” 

Fred, after a visible struggle, said, “Well, that don’t 
prevent my telling him what I think of him, does it?” 

“No, you can do that as often as you wish. Anything 
else?” 

“Yes! I want him to shut up about that stallion.” 

“Good heavens, Fred! What do I care about his gab! 
What I want him to do is to return the horse to Red Wolf. 
He’ll do it, before the play ends. Anything else, Fred ?” 

Fred looked at the landlord of the Indian Massacre. 
“My God!” he exclaimed. “Don’t he look like one of his 
own custard pies! Git gone, you dirty road runner, you!” 

And Pink trotted ignominiously down the trail. 

The two men gave him ten minutes’ start. There was 
very little said while they waited. In fact, Fred ventured 
but two remarks. 

“I’m kinda sorry you didn’t plug him.” 


THE HEARING 187 

“After all,” repeated Hugh, “that wouldn’t have 
brought back the triceratops.” 

“Is that what made you hold off?” asked Fred skep¬ 
tically. 

Hugh did not reply and the trip back to Fort Sioux 
was made in almost total silence. In fact, they were turn¬ 
ing in at the home corral before Fred said: 

“You got company.” 

“Who is it?” grunted Hugh. 

“That Mrs. Ellis. She come in on the ten o’clock flyer 
last night. She come right to The Lariat, but I shooed 
her over to the hotel. Told her I’d come for her this 
morning as soon as you was fixed up to receive visitors. 
She asked me if you’d got any spring books in yet. Guess 
she might be got to buy that set of second-hand Pansy 
books.” 

“Wait till I get shaved and have some breakfast, Fred. 
Then you see to it that she and I have an hour or two 
alone, will you?” 

“All right,” growled Fred. “I’m glad she’s white- 
headed. Pretty soon The Lariat ain’t going to have any 
more reputation than a dance hall.” 

But Hugh already was stamping in at the door of the 
book shop. 


CHAPTER X 


THE DINOSAUR 

M RS. ELLIS was as glad to see Hugh as he was to 
see her. “You look as if political lobbying didn’t 
agree with you,” she said, patting his arm affectionately. 

“It doesn’t,” he agreed, placing a chair for her near the 
heater. “I’m not going to try it that way again.” 

“What way are you going to try?” asked Mrs. Ellis. 
Hugh’s reply was indirect. He spoke slowly, his voice 
so low that his hearer was obliged to lean forward in her 
chair, bright eyes on his lips. 

“Their ignorance and their selfishness was what im¬ 
pressed me most, at first. But, thinking it over, I realized 
that their ignorance of my business was no greater than 
mine of theirs. And that their selfishness toward the 
welfare of the state as shown toward the Old Sioux Tract 
was no greater than mine toward the Children’s Code. 
Mrs. Ellis, they are mediocre in brains, every one of them. 
If you will help me I’ll make that rough-neck legislature 
swallow the Children’s Code and the Old Sioux Tract at 
one mouthful.” 

Mrs. Ellis grew suddenly red and as suddenly white. 
“Do you realize,” she asked, “very fully, what you are 
saying? In order to do this Mrs. Morgan and I shall have 
to make you governor of Wyoming. We can do it. But 
I believe that you will have to make an even greater sacri¬ 
fice than you realize. You are thinking of the pain of 

188 


THE DINOSAUR 189 

giving up your work as a paleontologist. I am thinking 
of something much more painful.” 

She hesitated, then gathered herself together resolutely. 
“Mr. Stewart, as governor-elect, your private life will be 
held up to the scrutiny of every man, woman and child 
in Wyoming. The American voter is a curiously illogical 
animal. No matter what his or her private life may be, 
that voter demands that the private life of its governors 
and its presidents shall be beyond reproach. This is par¬ 
ticularly true of the woman voter. My dear boy, if you 
go into this, you will have to end the gossip about Miriam 
Page, and return to your wife.” 

Hugh drew himself slowly to his feet. As he did so 
there was a sudden fusillade of gunshots in the street and 
Johnny Parnell, rifle in hand, burst into the door of The 
Lariat. 

“Pink in here?” demanded Johnny, his great voice fill¬ 
ing the shop. 

“No! What’s the trouble?” Hugh placed himself 
quickly between the panting cowman and the door. 

“Caught him cursing Jessie, about me—about you. 
I tried to kill the blank, but I had to get my saddle gun. 
Leave me out of here, Hughie!” 

Hugh did not move. “What’s the idea? To add 
murder to the rest of Jessie’s troubles?” 

“What do you care? What is it of your business?” 
roared Johnny. 

He made a sudden rush at Hugh. The two men 
clinched, swinging heavily against the cash register. Be¬ 
fore Mrs. Ellis could reach the door, it swung open and 
Jessie ran into the shop. 

“Behave yourself, Johnny!” she cried, striding over to 
the wrestlers. 

At the sound of her voice, the purple face of the cow- 


190 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

man suddenly paled. He turned himself around in Hugh’s 
grasp and looked at her. 

“Where’s Pink?” he shouted. 

“Looking for his gun, with mother at his heels,” she 
replied. 

“He’s harmless if Mrs. Morgan is with him,” said Mrs. 
Ellis with a quick laugh. 

Jessie put a long, finely shaped hand on Johnny’s 
shoulder. “Johnny! Johnny! This is not the way to 
help me, my dear!” 

Johnny's face twisted. “Nobody can talk like that to 
you, Jessie. Maybe you can stand it, but I can’t.” 

“I appreciate that, Johnny, but gun play won’t clear up 
the snarl I’m in. You’ll have to promise me you’ll let my 
father alone, Johnny.” 

At this moment the population of The Lariat was 
augmented by the arrival of Pink, six-shooter in hand, 
with his wife hanging on his arm. Hugh, who was now 
holding Johnny’s saddle gun, moved with the quickness 
characteristic of his long, lean body, and catching Pink 
by the collar shook him as if he had been a fat pink and 
white bulldog. Then with indescribable swiftness, he 
booted him into the street, slammed the door and bolted it. 

“After all, he is my father-in-law, I suppose,” he said, 
with a casual air. 

“You could have taken his gun without kicking him,” 
Mrs. Morgan’s voice was tart. 

“I’ll kick him again if he doesn’t let Jess alone,” 
returned Hugh, breaking Johnny’s gun and dropping the 
cartridges into his own pocket. 

“After all, she is your wife, I suppose,” said Johnny, 
dryly. 

There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence, during 
which Hugh and Johnny stared at each other. 


THE DINOSAUR 


191 

“I hate you, you bone-digging she-man, you !” Johnny 
broke the silence with a bitterness that filled the room as 
did his voice. 

Mrs. Ellis drew a quick breath. But no one stirred 
except Hugh. He walked slowly over to Johnny. 

“Parnell,” he said, “take that back!” 

“It’s true,” repeated Johnny between his teeth. 

“Take it back!” said Hugh again, his gray eyes boring 
into the cowman’s. 

The river murmur filled the room. Jessie’s fine gaze, 
endlessly weary, did not leave Hugh’s profile. 

“I’ll take back what I called you, but I hate you, just 
the same.” Johnny’s voice was husky. 

“All right!” Hugh nodded. “Now, you three go sit 
down by the stove. I want to talk to you.” 

Johnny did not move from his place by the cash register, 
but the two women took the chairs Hugh indicated. He 
slowly walked the length of the room, from the stove to 
the rear window, where he stared at the far wall of the 
canyon, unseeingly; from the rear window to the front 
window, where his unseeing gaze rested for a long 
moment on the distant black silhouette of a coyote above 
the east crest of the canyon wall. Then he turned 
deliberately to his old place before the counter. 

“I am going,” he said carefully, “to be governor of 
Wyoming. I have no particular fitness for the job, that 
I know of, but I can learn. You, Mrs. Morgan, and you, 
Mrs. Ellis, are going to use your resources to help me 
swing the woman vote. I’m going in without a solitary 
promise except to force through the Children’s Code.” 

“You can be nominated, but you can’t be elected unless 
you return to your wife!” exclaimed Mrs. Ellis, a trace 
of anger in her voice. 

Hugh turned on her. “Mrs. Ellis, you and Fort Sioux 


192 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

in general have nothing whatever to do with my private 
life. I am a decent, law-abiding citizen. What lies or 
does not lie between me and Jessie Morgan is not your 
business or that of Wyoming. As governor, I’m not 
going to administer a marital code for the state/' 

“Hugh is right in that!” exclaimed Jessie, suddenly. 

“He’ll find out whether he’s right or not when the 
members of women’s clubs begin man-handling him!” 
ejaculated Mrs. Ellis. 

“Pshaw I” snapped Mrs. Morgan. “They’ll think all 
the more of him. I know women.” 

“Women and the woman vote are two different mat¬ 
ters!” affirmed Mrs. Ellis. 

Johnny Parnell gave a sudden strident laugh. “Looks 
like the Gray Stallion would have trouble with his herd 
from the very start!” 

The three women turned startled faces toward Hugh. 
But the look of fury did not return to the geologist’s 
face. He nodded gravely. “I accept the appellation. But 
it’s going to be a mixed herd. For instance, you’re going 
to bring in the cattlemen in this part of the state.” 

“I am like thunder!” shouted Johnny. 

“Don’t waste my time, Johnny. Pm through fooling. 
I’m swapping you one invaluable dinosaur, smashed and 
scattered to the four winds, for one solid but not invalu¬ 
able ranchers' vote.” Hugh’s speech was stiff, for his 
jaw still was set. 

“What are you talking about, you fool!” roared 
Johnny. 

“You know what I’m talking about,” returned Hugh. 
“Are you going to deliver the goods?” 

Johnny glared at Hugh, anger, surprise and a certain 
unwonted respect for his rival struggling for supremacy 
in his good-natured face. Mrs. Ellis, leaning forward in 


THE DINOSAUR 


193 

her chair, turned a glance of bewilderment on Mrs. Mor¬ 
gan, which Mrs. Morgan, bright eyes on Hugh’s profile, 
did not see. 

“Hustle up, Johnny,” insisted Hugh. 

“You’ve gone plumb loco, Hughie,” growled the cow¬ 
man. 

“Have I? You’ve seen fit to intrude yourself on me 
in some particularly personal matters, Johnny. Now 
you’ll pay. Are you going to deliver that vote?” 

Johnny did not return Hugh’s threatening stare. He 
was watching Jessie as if to discover what thoughts were 
passing behind the shield of her strong, tired face. But 
he received no help from Jessie. 

“I’ve been so patient with you, Johnny,” Hugh’s low 
voice was not pleasant, “that you felt privileged to call me 
effeminate. I’m going to see you eat those words before 
many months. One wantonly destroyed dinosaur, Johnny, 
for the cowmen’s vote.” 

“All right,” said the cowman, suddenly, and he walked 
to the door. 

Before he had unbolted it, Hugh’s quiet voice brought 
him to pause. 

“Drop in here tonight, Johnny, for a conference.” 

Johnny grunted acquiescence and went out. 

Hugh turned to his mother-in-law. “You’re to take 
orders from Mrs. Ellis, Mrs. Morgan. She is my cam¬ 
paign manager.” 

Mrs. Morgan jumped to her feet. “Nothing of the 
sort-” she began. 

“That’s enough, Mrs. Morgan!” interrupted Hugh. 
“You can run Pink, but you are now coming through and 
make up to me for what you’ve done to my life.” 

“I won’t take orders from a woman,” snapped his 
mother-in-law. 



194 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“You’ll take orders from my campaign manager,” 
returned Hugh, “or I’ll wreck every ambition you possess. 
And I know them all.” 

“I’ll take orders if you make Jessie Mrs. Ellis’ assistant, 
and let the orders to me come through her,” offered Mrs. 
Morgan, suddenly. 

“Jessie is to keep out of this,” Hugh’s voice was short. 

“She’s going to help me,” contradicted his mother-in- 
law. 

“No, by Jupiter!” suddenly thundered Hugh. “Jessie 
is to keep out of this.” 

Jessie rose, and with the long deliberation of her stride 
never more accented, left The Lariat. Her mother would 
have followed her, but Hugh touched her shoulder. 

“I want your agreement, Mrs. Morgan.” 

“You seem to forget, Hugh, that you told me you were 
through with me and mine for good and all.” 

“Yes, I did say that,” acknowledged Hugh, “and I’m 
not sorry I said it, either. I wish I could have lived up 
to my determination. But I’ve taken in this fight and 
anybody whom I need to help me must help me. Among 
other things, I want you to keep Pink in order.” 

“Oh, I’m through with Pink!” exclaimed Mrs. Morgan, 
darting a quick look at Mrs. Ellis. “I don’t like some 
things he’s done lately. Of course,” this very distinctly, 
“there will be no idea of this reach the public, and I’d 
never divorce Jessie’s father. But I want Mrs. Ellis to 
understand distinctly that I’m not behind Pink’s vulgar 
schemes.” 

“What your husband is makes no difference to me,” 
said the mother of the Children’s Code. “Only don’t let 
it get noised about that there is any serious disagreement 
between the two of you, or you are ruined, politically.” 

“I know that as well as you do,” returned Mrs. Morgan, 


THE DINOSAUR 


195 

this time looking at Hugh. She went on, “You are 
making a mistake in not letting Jessie help you. She has 
the best of her father and of me in her.” 

“Are you boasting?” asked Hugh, unsmilingly. 

Mrs. Morgan flushed as she said with astounding gentle¬ 
ness, “No, Hughie. I’m not boasting.” After a moment 
she said: 

“I’ll agree, if I seem to the public to have as much 
authority as Mrs. Ellis,” and this time she reached the 
door without further interruption. 

Hugh turned to Mrs. Ellis. She met his look squarely. 
“I’m not overpowered by all this masterfulness, Mr. 
Stewart,” she said. 

“I’ll not try masterfulness on you,” he returned gently. 
He put his hands on her shoulders and looked down into 
her face with his charming expression of affectionate 
friendliness. 

“Mr. Stewart,” Mrs. Ellis’ voice was as gentle as the 
man’s, “your wife-” 

“Don’t! Don’t!” Bitterness replaced the affection in 
his gaze. “You must not, you shall not jeopardize our 
friendship by touching again on that.” 

“I shall presume on friendship to say this much,” 
insisted Mrs. Ellis. “You have loved Jessie very much 
or you would not be so bitter. You still feel strongly 
about her or you would have become indifferent to what 
she may or may not do.” 

There was silence, during which the two looked deep 
into each other’s eyes. Then Hugh said softly, “Mrs. 
Ellis, are you going to be my campaign manager?” 

“If you will-” 

“No! No!” interrupted Hugh. “You are never to 
bring that up again.” He sat down beside her and clasped 
both her hands. “Mrs. Ellis, help me in this crisis.” 




196 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Young man, are you making love to a woman old 
enough to be your mother—who wishes she were your 
mother?” 

Hugh smiled and waited. Mrs. Ellis freed one of her 
hands and smoothed the hair back from Hugh’s forehead. 
“My dear,” she said, “if you are not very careful you are 
going to wreck your career.” 

“I know,” replied Hugh. “What a pity things mean 
so much to us! But, Mrs. Ellis, I am going to be a 
governor and a good governor for a few years before 
I go back to my dinosaurs.” 

“Once you are made governor, you’ll never go back to 
your geology. You’ll have no right to. You’ll see that 
two years from now.” 

“Then you are going to help me—without exacting any 
terms!” exclaimed Hugh. 

“I’m a weak female fool!” sighed Mrs. Ellis. “Not so 
weak either. I have great faith in your riding over 
impossible trails.” 

Hugh lifted one of her plump hands to his lips and rose 
to his feet. There were tears in his eyes. Something in 
Mrs. Ellis’ voice had brought to his memory his tall, gray¬ 
eyed mother, star-gazing with him on Christmas Eve. He 
suddenly felt very lonely and very tired. 

“I want—very much,” he said huskily, “to make up—•• 
to Bookie—for a good many things.” 

For a moment Mrs. Ellis did not reply. Then she said, 
quietly, “It’s going to be a tremendous fight. I shall enjoy 
it. I shall begin to enjoy it by calling you by your 
given name! Hughie, did Johnny Parnell destroy your 
dinosaur?” 

“Evidently he knows something about it,” replied Hugh 
with an amused grin. 

“You mean that you were bluffing?” 


THE DINOSAUR 


197 

Hugh nodded as he filled his pipe. Mrs. Ellis suddenly- 
laughed. “It is really going to be a great fight! Now 
let’s begin to lay plans.” 

It was a great fight. Wyoming never had been sundered 
before by so strange or so bitter a political war. Hugh 
himself was not bitter. He drove himself relentlessly. 
He neither gave nor asked quarter. But he was too im¬ 
personal to be acrimonious. This was not true either of 
his followers or of his adversaries. The latter resented 
Hugh’s presence in politics. He was classified as a school 
man. To a westerner a school man has very little to do 
with life. They resented even more deeply his fight 
against the Thumb Butte Dam site. But, most of all, they 
resented his cool disdain of party machinery and party 
politics. 

On the other hand, Hugh’s followers were loyal to an 
astonishing degree. They liked him. His popularity was 
of a sudden and violent growth, and not with the women 
alone. Many men, and not only those who would be 
unaffected by the Thumb Butte decision, after listening 
to one of Hugh’s speeches, came out even more strongly 
than their women folks for this lean, melancholy-looking 
fossil hunter. 

Under a more or less thin shell of hardihood, your 
western plainsman is extremely sentimental. He is starved 
for romance. He hungers for the appeal to his imagina¬ 
tion. And the story of Hugh’s self-exiling to The Lariat 
was romance pure and simple. As much as they under¬ 
stood of his sacrifice, the plainsmen approved of highly. 
But still more highly they approved the quality of his 
defiance. After all, this still was a frontier state. Men 
still delighted in the single gun holdup. And Hugh, 
standing alone against the great Eastern Electric Company 
and against the ring at Cheyenne, Hugh, inexperienced, 


198 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

lonely, independent of spirit, iron of will, held his fol- 
lowers in a fever of enthusiasm. 

It was a tumultuous spring and summer. Under the 
extraordinary itinerary arranged by Mrs. Ellis and Mrs. 
Morgan there was not a remote section of the huge and 
difficult state to which Hugh did not penetrate. He trav¬ 
eled for the most part in the airplane, christened the 
Dinosaur and driven by Marten, the ex-ace. There was 
nothing obviously noteworthy in Hugh’s speeches. No 
one thought of Hugh as an orator or even as a speaker. 
Reported in the Cheyenne papers, his speeches were reflec¬ 
tions of the talks he had given to the two committees of 
women in The Lariat, many months before. But no one 
who heard Hugh speak ever was to forget either the man 
or his vision. 

Vision! That is the gift of the gods which makes one 
man lead while others may only follow. The capacity to 
see life in the large, to place events in their true relation 
to their cause, to behold the beginning and the end of the 
gigantic procession even while one’s self a minute figure 
moving in the midst of it, this was Hugh’s great and 
unconscious gift. 

In spite or perhaps because of his detached attitude 
toward state and party lines, Hugh made some exceedingly 
astute decisions as to the choice of people who were to 
handle the details of his campaign. That doughty old 
warrior, Mrs. Ellis, known as the mother of the Children’s 
Code, had the respect of every voter in the state. She was 
a clean-handed politician, ruthless, tactful. And though 
she had temporarily lost the Code and although Hugh did 
not mention it in his campaign speeches, there was a primal 
righteousness in a woman politician fighting for babies 
born and unborn that caused her enemies to respect and 
fear her strength. For every one in the state knew that 


THE DINOSAUR 199 

Hugh must have pledged himself to the Children’s Code 
in order to win Mrs. Ellis. 

The other astute decision was with regard to Johnny 
Parnell. For this reason the conference with Johnny that 
first evening after Hugh had declared himself was note¬ 
worthy. Johnny came in after supper, truculently enough, 
to find Hugh sitting alone, smoking, feet on the window 
ledge, eyes on the afterglow in the western sky. Hugh 
indicated an empty chair beside him. 

“Let’s have it out, Johnny,” he said. “Not about the 
cave and the dinosaur. I don’t want to see red for the next 
few months. I mean about this new enmity of yours.” 

“You can’t get decent help out of a guy you’re black¬ 
mailing,” growled the cowman, throwing a half-smoked 
cigarette out of the window and lighting another 
immediately. 

“I know that,” returned Hugh. “I’m not going to black¬ 
mail you. What I said to you this morning was just the 
wildest sort of a guess on my part. If you hadn’t come 
back as you did, you could have bluffed me easily enough.” 

Johnny jumped to his feet. “You mean to tell me you 
didn’t have the goods on me and Pink?” 

“Johnny, didn’t I warn you that when I needed you, I’d 
whip you into line?” asked Hugh. “Well, I need you now, 
and in you come.” 

“Like thunder I do! What kind of a bluff are you 
throwing, Hugh?” 

Again Hugh did not answer. “Don’t think for a minute, 
Johnny, that I misunderstand your loyalty to Jessie. As 
a matter of fact, knowing you so well, I’ve taken a queer 
kind of comfort in feeling that you are her friend. On 
the other hand, I don’t propose to let you go on thinking 
you are my enemy. Johnny, you and I couldn’t be enemies 
if we tried a thousand years, and no matter how much we 


200 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

disapproved of each other’s conduct. Why, man, we were 
born friends. We’ve borrowed each other’s shirts. We’ve 
ridden herd alone together for months and never quar¬ 
reled. Haven’t we, Johnny?” 

Johnny stirred uneasily. “Don’t you go to trying to 
rope me while you honey me, Hugh. I just ain’t going to 
try to forgive you for what you’ve put between you and 
Jessie. I’m not hoping for myself. I know as well as 
you do I’ll go off some day and marry some little brunette 
shrimp that faints if she sees a mouse. But it won’t be 
because I don’t like Jessie’s kind best. It will just be 
fate.” 

“When I ask you to forgive me will be time enough to 
discuss that,” returned Hugh, slowly. 

“Well, you’re asking me for help and I can’t help you 
when I feel like I do.” 

Hugh smiled. “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. 
Of course, to answer your question about the bluff, I’ll 
have to admit it was pure guesswork. I’m certain you 
and Pink drank too much raisin jack and ruined the 
dinosaur, but I have no proof and I don’t want proof.” 

Johnny’s mouth twitched, and suddenly he burst into 
a loud roar of laughter. 

*Hughie, doggone your fossil hide! Why you dogy, 
sad-eyed maverick, you! You’ve got Sherlock Holmes 
beaten at his own game. And me! Me! The strong- 
armed Swede! Priding myself on being a real he-man, 
caught without trying by the guy I called a sissy. Hughie, 
I’d ought to take you out and get you drunk!” and again 
Johnny shouted with laughter. 

Hugh grinned and waited until the cowman had wiped 
his eyes and seated himself again. Then he said quietly, 
“I’m not going to let the dinosaur matter rest here, but 


201 


THE DINOSAUR 

as I ve just said, we’ll put it by till the campaign is over. 
I’m not going to blackmail you. I’m going to buy you.” 

“There’s just one way,” returned Johnny, “that you 
can buy me, and that is by giving Jessie a square deal.” 

“Jessie is getting a square deal,” said Hugh. “She is a 
strong, intelligent woman who up to now has refused to 
do her bit. Life has struck her a blow that’s wakened 
her. She’s seeing and feeling and thinking things now 
that she never knew existed. She’s intrinsically more 
virile and much cleverer than you are. She doesn’t care 
about you. She doesn’t want your help. Why don’t you 
drop out of her and my personal affairs? I think you’re 
acting like an intrusive kid.” 

Johnny smoked violently but in silence. After a 
moment Hugh went on: 

“I have a straight business proposition to make you. 
You are one of the most prominent men in the cattle- 
raisers’ association of Wyoming. You dislike the dude 
end of ranching as much as I do, and the big end of the 
business on Bookie’s ranch always has been cattle. Let’s 
cut out dudes up there from now on. Let’s make the 
ranch the headquarters, experiment station, object lesson, 
anything you want to call it, for men who are trying to 
keep Wyoming a cattle-raising state.” 

Johnny’s eyes gleamed. He sat up very straight and 
threw another half-smoked cigarette out the window. 

“I don’t know exactly how you’ll go about it,” Hugh 
went on thoughtfully. “That’s your business.” 

“Lord, I know how!” shouted Johnny. “Why, say, 
Hughie, we could save Wyoming from the sheep men and 
the nestor if I could have a chance to carry out some ideas 
I’ve got.” 

“Well,” said Hugh, “you go ahead. You’re equal 
partners with me from now on. Eh?” 


202 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Hughie,” exclaimed Johnny, his great voice infinitely 
persuasive, “are you doing this just to get the cattle- 
raisers back of you?” 

Hugh rose and paced the length of the room, returning 
to stand before the cowman. 

“Johnny, you’ve said and done some hard things to me 
lately.” 

“By God, I have!” bringing his fist down on the win¬ 
dow-sill. “I deserve what you gave Pink.” 

“I’d hate to try to give it to you.” Hugh glanced 
appraisingly at Johnny’s brawny bulk. “I like you, 
Johnny; always did. Your father and Uncle Bookie were 
buddies in the old days. You and I've ridden the range 
many a week together.” He paused, then said abruptly: 
“The cattle-raisers must be made quietly to understand 
that I’m going to put through the Children’s Code.” 

Johnny nodded and rose, his white teeth flashing in his 
old wide smile. “All right, Hughie! You can keep on 
riding herd in a book store. Me—I’ve got to start a 
round-up to vaccinate cattle-raisers. By the way! What 
are we going to do with Pink?” 

“Let him go his gait,” replied Hugh. “He’s done his 
worst.” 

“I guess you’re right,” agreed Johnny, and he took a 
short-cut through the rear window to the hotel corral. 

Thus Johnny Parnell was won to the cause of the Gray 
Stallion. He developed into a real and powerful party 
leader. 

Hugh’s first and greatest apprehension was, of course, 
lest the Eastern Electric Corporation should be able to 
begin actual work on the dam before the fall election. 
Before he was able, however, to form a new plan of attack 
on the Public Utilities Commission, he was astonished to 
receive a visit in The Lariat from old Charlie Whitson. 


THE DINOSAUR 


203 

The old cowman, smooth-shaven face, red veined and 
full jowled above a bright red necktie, came in to ask for 
a book on cattle raising. Hugh looked his shelves over 
seriously enough before he announced regretfully that he 
had no such work. 

“But,” he added, cheerfully, “you might find one up at 
the ranch.” 

“Yes, I suppose so,” replied Whitson, looking from 
Hugh to the shelves with their heterogeneous mixture of 
books, Indian curios and fossils. “I heard you’d quit 
dudes for good.” 

Hugh nodded. “Parnell and I decided there were 
Ugg er things to be done with Uncle Bookie’s old ranch 
than fattening dudes.” 

“I suppose so!” old Whitson snorted. “Like the 
A B C’s of dehorning! Well, Stewart, what are you 
after, anyhow?” 

“I want to be governor of Wyoming,” replied Hugh, 
giving the older man a square look. 

“You’ll never make it.” 

“If you’re so sure of that, why bother to buy your book 
on cattle raising from me?” 

“Lord! What do you amount to, anyhow?” Whitson 
snorted again. “Why, the first time I ever saw you, you 
were a freckle-faced little brat crying because some one 
had stepped on some fool fossil you’d lugged into the 
ranch.” 

“History repeats itself,” retorted Hugh, grimly. 

“And now you’re going to the women with it,” Whitson 
went on, “and they’re swarming like hornets up there on 
the Commission. Call ’em off. We aren’t afraid of ’em.” 

“Me?” asked Hugh innocently. “But I am afraid of 
’em! The leading hornet, as it were, is my campaign 
manager. I wouldn’t think of directing her movements.” 


204 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Yes, and her right hand is your mother-in-law. Come 
now, Stewart, what do you want to call ’em off?” 

“And I tell you, Whitson, I can’t call ’em off.” 

“Your job being merely to make speeches, I suppose!” 

“About that.” 

Whitson refreshed himself with a fresh mouthful of 
cut plug. When he spoke again his voice was slightly 
thick but had lost its sneer. 

“You’ve got a powerful backing, Stewart. Even Eli 
realizes that he’s got his work cut out for him if the 
women’s man gets the nomination. You aren’t going to 
like politics, my boy. Better stay with your fossils.” 

“I’d like to, but you see the decisions of the Governor 
and of the Public Utilities Commissioners threaten to take 
my fossils away from me. Whitson, I’m going to fix it 
so that the natural resources of this state are going to be 
saved to the future.” 

“Babies coming under the head of natural resources, 
I suppose,” commented Whitson. 

“Absolutely!” returned Hugh, shortly. 

“I don’t like the look of it,” said the old politician, 
suddenly. “The way these school men and such are horn¬ 
ing themselves into politics is awful bad for the country. 
Why, we might as well turn the government over to the 
women and the professors and be done with it.” 

“Whitson,” asked Hugh, soberly, “Mrs. Ellis has Eli 
beaten on every point. She’s more honest, more intelli¬ 
gent, better educated, and a better politician. Wyoming 
should be grateful for her.” 

“She’s a woman, ain’t she? So no matter how hard 
she is, she’s soft. The same way with professors. I don’t 
want ’em in office and,” raising his voice, “I’ll fight ’em as 
long as I live.” 

“Of course, you will,” agreed Hugh, calmly. “Well, 


THE DINOSAUR 


205 

Whitson, I’m sorry I can’t dig up a book on cattle raising 
for you. Here is a book I put in at Mrs. Ellis’ suggestion 
on the Care and Feeding of Infants. How would you 
like that?” 

“You go to blazes!” growled Whitson. “Stewart, you 
come up to Cheyenne and have a talk with me and Eli. 
That’s what I really stopped over for.” 

“According to my schedule, I’ll reach Cheyenne in 
June. I’ll be glad to see you both.” 

Whitson eyed Hugh for a long minute. “Is that the 
best you can do?” 

“Yes, it is,” replied Hugh, cheerfully. 

“You are making an awful mistake, Stewart,” said the 
older man. “There’s the east-bound whistling now. 
You’ll be sorry for this, Stewart,” and he was gone, 
leaving Hugh with an enormously increased respect for 
the weight of the women voters of his native state. 


CHAPTER XI 


BIG FANG 

H E had reason to add to this respect when a little later 
the Utilities Commission postponed decision on the 
Thumb Butte charter until fall. 

From Easter on to the fall elections Hugh gave all his 
time to the fight. He turned The Lariat over to Principal 
Jones’s care. Afraid of Fred All ward’s capacity for get¬ 
ting into trouble, he sent the old miner out on a long 
prospecting trip that should cover the northern extreme 
of that section of the Old Sioux Tract which the building 
of the dam would cause the river to inundate. Fred de¬ 
parted under strict orders to confine himself only to pros¬ 
pecting and to curb his ambition to exhume the fossils 
himself. Jessie went back to the ranch, in what capacity 
Hugh neither knew nor asked. 

It was early summer when Miriam appeared in Fort 
Sioux. She had not written Hugh of her proposed visit, 
and she chose a dramatic moment for her arrival. 

There was no telephone in The Lariat. Mrs. Ellis and 
Mrs. Morgan, with half a dozen of the faithful, had been 
sitting for hours at the telephone in the Indian Massacre. 
Now, radiant with the bigness of their news, they were 
moving in a solid phalanx on Hugh in The Lariat. It 
was not yet dusk though the sun had set. Hugh, standing 
at the rear window, his back to the river, saw the group 
of women’s faces as in a glory, flushed and uplifted by the 
tender warmth of the afterglow. He stepped forward to 
meet them. 


206 


BIG FANG 


207 

Mrs. Ellis left the group and holding out her hand said, 
“You are the Fusion nominee for governor, Hughie.” 

It was at this moment that Miriam came in at the open 
door. At first no one saw her. Hugh, in laughing reply 
to the women’s congratulations, saw Mrs. Morgan’s sud¬ 
den scowl and looked up to behold the woman he loved 
standing at the edge of the group. He turned very white. 

“Ah! Miriam!” he said in a voice that no woman 
there was to forget, and clasj>ed the slender gloved hand 
held out to him. “Mrs. Ellis,” he said, “this is Miss Page, 
of Boston.” 

Mrs. Ellis bowed and stood in silence while Hugh made 
the other introductions. No one offered to shake hands 
with Miriam. No one spoke when introduced. It was 
Mrs. Morgan who made the first attack. 

“You are here for the summer, Miss Page?” 

“No, Mrs. Morgan. I am on a business trip to Seattle, 
and I’ve stopped over for a few days to congratulate Hugh 
on his success as a politician.” 

“I'm no politician!” exclaimed Hugh. “Here are the 
politicians!” He included the group in a gesture. 

“Are there no men ?” asked Miriam. 

As if in answer to her query, Principal Jones strolled 
in. He shook hands with Hugh, then with Miriam. 

“Come out to help, Miss Page?” he asked. 

“If I can, in the few days of my stay,” answered 
Miriam. 

Principal Jones nodded and turned to Hugh. “The 
men over at the barber shop are about torn in two. They 
hate you for your attitude on Thumb Butte. But they’d 
like to have it appear as if they had some influence in get¬ 
ting a Fort Sioux man nominated for governor of the 
state. So far, hate has won.” 

“Has it really gone that far, Hughie?” asked Miriam. 


208 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“You wrote me that the town had deserted you, but I 
didn’t realize all that that meant.” 

“Oh, I’m reconciled to being deserted by the men,” re¬ 
plied Hugh. “The best citizens of the town have stuck 
by me,” nodding at the group of women. 

“I can see that!” agreed Miriam readily. “But the men 
ought to back you, too.” 

“The finest men in Wyoming—the ranchers—are back¬ 
ing him,” said Mrs. Ellis, suddenly. “Fort Sioux doesn’t 
happen to be a ranchers’ town.” 

“I see!” Miriam’s tone carried relief. 

“No, you don’t see!” exclaimed Mrs. Morgan, speaking 
with an exasperation she found impossible to control. 
“You don’t see that your presence in Wyoming at this 
particular time is enough to lose Hughie the election.” 

Hugh flushed and lifted his head angrily, but before he 
could speak there was a sudden blare of horns without and 
Johnny Parnell burst into the room. 

“Hail, Governor! Come out and meet the cattlemen. 
Been gathering all day. Come out, old Gray Stallion!” 

He threw his arm excitedly around Hugh’s shoulders 
and rushed him out to the door-step. Flames were rising 
from a bonfire in the street. By its light, Hugh beheld 
men’s faces turned up to his; many, many faces. They 
filled the street. For a moment the blare of horns was all. 
Then a voice shouted: 

“Three cheers for the Gray Stallion! Hip! Hip! Hoo¬ 
ray!” 

The uproar reverberated from the canyon wall in an 
echo of ear-splitting intensity. 

“Hey, governor, tell us the truth!” cried some one when 
the echo had subsided. “Who gets the gray stallion when 
the fight is over ?” 

“We’ll turn him into a fossil and stand him in Pink 


BIG FANG 


209 

Morgan’s corral as a consolation prize!” shouted a voice. 

There was huge laughter and more cheers. A prolonged 
singing of ‘‘Hail! Hail! the gang’s all here!” Then the 
demand for a speech. 

Hugh standing erect in the doorway, his face a little 
thinner, a little more weary than ever, features blocked out 
in heavy shadow and crimson light, hesitated in the silence 
that followed the demand. He was more deeply moved 
by this ovation than any he had received during the 
months of speechmaking. On the outskirts of the crowd 
of men who wore proudly on the lapels of their coats a 
little button bearing a gray horse head, he distinguished 
the faces of his fellow townsmen, disapproving faces, it 
seemed to Hugh, even in the warming glow of the fire. 
And a pang of regret darkened the happiness of the mo¬ 
ment. Then he gathered himself together. 

“I can’t talk about anything but fossils, you know!” 
he said, clearly. “I’m nothing but what our political en¬ 
emies call me, a bone digger—I—” a man’s voice inter¬ 
rupted : 

“Gosh! And I been backing you for a stallion!—a 
thoroughbred gray at that!” 

“Three cheers for the thoroughbred!” roared another 
voice. 

The cheers were given. Hugh raised his hand for 
silence and went on, “It doesn’t matter what I am. What 
does matter is what I can see and get you to see. All that 
I want to do is to make you view Wyoming as my Uncle 
Bookie did, here from this door-step. He saw Wyoming 
men and women as a breed different from other states 
because our plains and mountains make them so. He knew 
that folks born of such country as this had a chance to be 
bigger in mind and body than folks of lesser states. He 
knew that they had not only the chance but the obligation 


210 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

to be bigger. And he saw them failing to be so. It hurt 
the old man.” He paused, then went on slowly: 

“I wish you all could have seen Wyoming as I have 
been seeing it these many months, from beneath the wings 
of the Dinosaur. The plains spread out in purple glory, 
infinite in extent, yet melting always into mountain ranges 
that the Dinosaur must wing to the very stars to crest, 
mountain range after range, white topped, gold and green 
flanked, endless, boundless, yet bounded always by purple 
plains. Wyoming! It belongs to the eagles, and we have 
been seeking to give it to the coyote pack.” 

Hugh bowed, then went down into the moved and ap¬ 
plauding crowd. 

It was nearly ten o’clock when he returned to The Lar¬ 
iat. Miriam was sitting alone, her chin in her palm. She 
rose and came rapidly to Hugh’s side. 

“Hughie! I never thought what my coming might do 
to you. You’ve told me nothing. Has there been scandal 
and talk, and has it hurt your cause?” 

Hugh hesitated. Miriam did not wait for him to 
reply but went on a little breathlessly: 

“Don’t try to answer. Of course, it’s been awful for 
you! Hughie, is that why you look so terribly worn?” 

“I don’t think so, Miriam. You see, politics is hard on 
those who like it. And I don’t like it. I’ve been sweating 
blood to make myself carry on. So it’s doubly hard on 
me. But it’s worth it.” 

Tears welled to her eyes. “I don’t care what it does 
to other people. But not to you. Your dear face! O 
Hughie! Hughie! What have I done to you!” 

Women’s voices sounded without the open door, and 
Mrs. Ellis came in, followed by Jessie. 

“Hughie,” said Mrs. Ellis, “I’ve persuaded Jessie to 
come in—to save the situation in the eyes of the public.” 


BIG FANG 


211 


Crimson-faced, Miriam turned to the gray-haired vet¬ 
eran of politics. “Mrs. Ellis, I shall go at-” 

“I don’t care to talk to you,” then turning to Jessie, 
“Do you want me to stay, Jessie?” 

Jessie, tall, calm, strong and tanned, smiled slightly. 
“We shall do very well without you, Mrs. Ellis. You’d 
better go to bed. Telephone to the ranch, will you, as to 
my whereabouts?” 

Mrs. Ellis nodded and went out. Jessie turned to Mir¬ 
iam. “I’m sorry to intrude, Miss Page. But I guess this 
is best—that is, if you and Hughie sincerely want the Gray 
Stallion to win.” 

Hugh looked from one woman to another, uneasy and 
bewildered. For once in her life, Miriam’s finesse failed 
her. She spoke abruptly. “What is the first train I can 
get, west?” 

“There is nothing out of here tonight. The Limited 
goes through the junction at two in the morning, but 
that won’t help you any. The junction is a hundred miles 
west of here,” replied Jessie. 

“How about the airplane?” asked Miriam. 

“Marten has gone up to Cheyenne,” replied Hugh. 
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry, Miriam.” 

“There’s every reason in the world to hurry,” returned 
Miriam, looking at Jessie, who nodded. 

“I have a suggestion to make; Hughie, you’re a fairly 
good airman now, they say. Let’s make a spectacle. You 
drive Miss Page and me to the junction. Nobody has 
gone to bed in Fort Sioux except perhaps Mrs. Ellis. It 
ought to shut people’s mouths for this once.” 

Without a word, Hugh jerked on his leather coat and 
cap. “I’ll be ready in half an hour,” he said, and strode 
out. 



212 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“You’ve let him in for a sweet situation,” Jessie’s voice 
was contemptuous. 

“Well, and I’m suffering for it, am I not?” asked Mir¬ 
iam sharply. 

“Not enough or as much as he will later,” replied Jessie. 
“Come over to the hotel and I’ll give you some warm 
clothes.” 

“Thank you,” said Miriam stiffly. “I have extra things 
In my suitcase here.” 

There was, as Jessie had surmised there would be, a 
large and interested audience on the great open space by 
the bridge where Hugh now parked the Dinosaur. 

“What, you too, Jessie?” called Billy Chamberlain. 

“Me? Didn’t you know Hughie was going to teach me 
to drive this pet stone bird of his, Billy? We’re going to 
take Miss Page to make the Limited at the junction, and 
then I’m to have my first lesson.” 

Jessie’s lazy voice was lost in the sudden whirr of the 
propeller. 

There was no moon, but the stars were brilliant. Hugh, 
teeth set over the seething caldron within him, lifted the 
Dinosaur in the familiar proud spiral until the river and 
the black canyon rim were only vague traceries below; 
then he turned westward. 

This, above all, he had not wanted, that Miriam should 
in any way be made to feel humiliated. She was of such 
fine stuff, so straight, so eager, so proud! He could not 
bear to feel that any sense of shame had touched her. 
Yet how utterly stupid, how entirely helpless he had been! 
The thing had been done, and Jessie in saving the situa¬ 
tion had added the very peak of pain to Miriam’s humilia¬ 
tion. He recognized Jessie’s generosity fully and was 
only the angrier for its ease and fineness. 

He lifted the Dinosaur above the mesas, above the fast 


BIG FANG 


213 

flying ramparts of the White Wolves, among whose peaks 
as always clouds were drifting. The clouds were thick 
and high tonight. Hugh and Marten had not made many 
night trips; never across the White Wolves except in the 
brilliant light of day. He sent the Dinosaur up and up 
until the cold was piercing, and he dared expose the two 
women no further. Still the clouds persisted. He drove 
with a vague sense of bewilderment now. No stars above. 
No earth below. Only the thick white vapor, stultifying, 
saturating. 

Jessie touched his arm and shouted in his ear. “Miriam 
is fainting with the cold and elevation.” 

Elevation! Cold did not matter so much, but the ele¬ 
vation was getting her. He began as cautiously as might 
be to nose downward. He believed that he must by now 
be well past the crest of the Wolves and that it was safe 
to venture beneath the vast continent of clouds. The 
Dinosaur dropped out of the clouds as suddenly as it had 
entered them. It was very dark. Suddenly something 
huge, blacker than the night itself, loomed before them. 
Hugh reversed his engine. The plane crashed into the 
upward slope of the peak, ran with decreasing speed up 
and up, crashed into a wall and half turning slid down¬ 
ward. The engine stopped. 

They brought up in utter blackness. The accident had 
come with unbelievable swiftness. At one moment they 
had been thundering through white space. The next, they 
had dropped into black silence. Hugh had been thrown 
violently against the side of the cockpit at the moment of 
the crash into the wall, but except for this the descent and 
stop had been gentle enough. 

“Either of you hurt?” cried Hugh. 

“I guess not,” replied Jessie dubiously. 


214 the exile of the lariat 

‘Tm all right,” said Miriam; “at least I can breathe 
here.” 

“Neither of you stir while I look about,” Hugh pre¬ 
pared with infinite caution to investigate their where¬ 
abouts. 

His right arm was useless, but he managed his pocket 
flash with his left hand. The machine was caught on a 
ledge above a canyon on whose depths the flashlight made 
no impression; and for all its charmed nine lives the 
Dinosaur was lying so precariously balanced that Hugh 
shuddered with fear for the two women. He dared not 
keep them in ignorance of their danger, and implored 
them to crawl out with breathless care. It seemed a thou¬ 
sand years to him before they were panting on the ledge 
beside him. 

For a few moments no one spoke; then Hugh said, 
“The clouds seem to be breaking and we’ll have a chance 
to locate ourselves. This ledge is very narrow. Don’t 
move about without using the flash.” 

“What is holding the Dinosaur up?” asked Jessie. 

“Some freak of balance and the devilish luck that pur¬ 
sues her,” replied Hugh. “I could w T rite a book on what 
she’s done to Marten’s and my nerves this summer.” 

“What shall we do?” queried Miriam. 

“As soon as there is more light, I’ll try to get away for 
help,” answered Hugh. 

“Can’t we relaunch the Dinosaur?” asked Jessie. 

“There’s no take-off here,” Hugh winced with pain as 
he spoke. He thought his arm must be broken. “I don’t 
want to smash the old bird up. She’s trump card for the 
Gray Stallion—and I’m fond of her for herself, hang her.” 

“Have you any idea of where w r e are, Hughie?” Mir¬ 
iam’s voice sounded forlorn, and he reached out to touch 
her knee comfortingly. 


BIG FANG 


215 

“I have an idea we’re sitting on the shoulder of Big 
Fang, the highest peak of the White Wolves. If that’s 
true we’re twenty bad miles from help at Heckle’s ranch. 
But there’s no danger at all. There’s a couple of days’ 
grub in the Dinosaur. I’ll leave you girls here and make 
Heckle’s in a few hours.” 

“We’d better all go together,” said Jessie. 

“Don’t be foolish,” exclaimed Hugh. “Miriam couldn’t 
make that trip.” 

“If you think I’ll stay on this ledge alone for two days 
with Miriam Page, you—well, you misjudge how I feel 
about things. I’d rather go on myself and leave you two 
here, only that would undo what I’ve tried to accomplish.” 
Jessie’s voice, disembodied in the darkness, sounded curi¬ 
ously bitter. Her hearers knew that she was not smiling 
and at ease now. 

“It’s an impossible situation!” ejaculated Miriam. 

“Exactly!” replied Jessie. 

Hugh rose. His arm was hurting him intolerably. 

“Where are you going, Hughie?” demanded Jessie. 

“I’m going to start!” 

“Don’t be a fool. That’s suicide in this darkness. If 
you go, I go,” Jessie rose. 

“I think that’s the answer,” said Miriam quietly. “Both 
of you go, leaving me here. No harm can come to me.” 

“I’d not think of it!” Hugh sat down abruptly. “There 
is no immediate hurry. We’ll wait until daylight.” 

In the darkness, he could vaguely discern that Jessie 
had seated herself at the edge of the ledge, close to the 
Dinosaur. Miriam was leaning against the wall of the 
mountain, some distance from either of them. Silence 
fell. Hugh managed to get his pipe going, and clasping 
the elbow of his injured arm firmly in his left hand, he 


216 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 


gave himself over to contemplation that was scarcely less 
painful than his injury. 

He would not permit himself to feel that he had done 
wrong to any one in allowing his love for Miriam to be 
frankly expressed. But he was coming to a full realization 
of the truth of Mrs. Ellis’ statement that a man in public 
life in America must live his private life conventionally or 
else be willing to face situations such as he had faced this 
evening in The Lariat. For himself he did not care. He 
sincerely believed that the bigness of the love he and 
Miriam felt for each other was full justification for 
itself. But he had discovered this evening that what hurt 
Miriam, hurt him; that what hurt Mrs. Ellis hurt him, and 
most of all, whatever threatened the success of the Gray 
Stallion’s mission was almost intolerable to him. And yet, 
he could not consider giving up Miriam without envisag¬ 
ing a mental and spiritual anguish which he believed he 
could not endure. 

For a long time Hugh contemplated the situation. Not 
the accident that had dropped them on the ledge, but the 
circumstances which had led to it. His pipe went cold. 
He forgot the pain in his arm. But he could not for a 
moment forget that his old sense of the rightness of his 
own decisions was gone. He felt as though in a night¬ 
mare with his house of life collapsing about his head. 

The wind was rising by degrees. Dawn must be com¬ 
ing. Hugh thought that Miriam and Jessie must be 
asleep, they sat so silent upon the ledge. 

A bluebird piped from below the ledge. After a long 
time another bluebird answered, feebly and remotely. 
The damp coldness of the night had been odorless. Now 
the wind brought the indescribable, pungent odor of the 
dawn. Faintly opposite, lifted a vague black outline as 
of an opposing mountain or canyon wall. Pale stars glim- 


BIG FANG 


217 

mered above the outline, and the stars scarcely had ap¬ 
peared when they were effaced by an increased trans- 
lucency of the sky, that merged into the translucency of 
the stars and so absorbed them. 

Gradually now Hugh was able to discern the huddled 
form of Miriam. His eye followed along the growing 
edge of the shelf on which their lives were so precariously 
perched. The wings of the Dinosaur. Something hud¬ 
dled beneath. Jessie? ;No. A boulder against which the 
Dinosaur braced herself from the chasm below. Hugh 
turned on his flashlight and threw a finger of light the 
length of the ledge. 

Jessie was not there. 

He started to his feet with an exclamation. Miriam 
wakened with a groan. 

“Hughie! What is it?” 

“Jess has gone. She can’t have fallen or I’d have heard 
her. She’s done what she threatened.” 

The two stared at each other while dawn in full panoply 
marched over the shoulder of Big Fang. 

Hugh stood in helpless exasperation for a moment. 
Miriam, very lovely in the growing light, in spite of her 
obvious weariness, smiled a little. 

“You see why she did it, don’t you, Hughie?” 

“No, I don’t. Even with her strength and experience 
she’s running a horrible risk.” 

“Of course, she knows that. But she preferred the 
risk to having to stay alone with me. She could go as far 
as chaperoning us on this trip. She could go no farther. 
Jessie is a tremendous hater. After all, she has a right to 
hate me even more than I hate her.” 

“I don’t see why you should hate Jessie,” said Hugh, 
for the first time speaking a little shortly to Miriam. 

“I hate her because she’s had your youth, because she 


218 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 


still has some of your thoughts. I want to blot her out 
of your very memory.” 

Hugh, who had been scanning the growing depths of 
the canyon below, holding his injured arm, his mind torn 
by a thousand difficulties, turned now, with his whole 
attention given to the pain in Miriam’s face and voice. 
He strode over to her and looked down into her eyes. 

“Miriam! Miriam! What have I done to you, my 
dearest?” 

“You’ve given me some perfect hours and some ex¬ 
quisite dreams,” she said. “But O Hugh, that is not 
enough for me! I want every corner of your mind.” 

“I have tried to give it all to you, Miriam. I thought 
I’d convinced you of that.” 

A sudden spoke of orange light shot along the eastern 
sky. It lighted the two tense faces gazing at each other 
across that impassable chasm of personality which sepa¬ 
rates all human beings. 

“You are sure that you love me, Hugh?” 

“Very, very sure, Miriam.” 

“And that no matter what happens you will believe in 
the bigness and fineness of my love for you?” 

“Yes, Miriam.” 

She turned to stare at the canyon which lay exposed now 
at their feet. After a moment she asked, “Where are we, 
Hugh?” 

“We’re in the Forest Reserve and perched well above 
the tree line. I’ll not tell you how high we are.” 

“I think you are wise!” Miriam shuddered. “Hugh, 
it would be better for you to leave me here and go on 
after Jessie. I’ll be quite safe, if I don’t go to gazing 
over the edge.” 

“Jess is without food or water,” said Hugh slowly. “I 
don’t see how she could be such a fool.” 


BIG FANG 


219 

“She’s not a fool. She’s much cleverer than I thought 
she was— I’m not thinking so much about her sufferings 
as I am about stopping the gossips that will gloat over 
your being alone here with me.” 

Hugh stood for a moment in thought. “I don’t like it. 
Not any of it,” he said finally. “My whole life now is 
made up of inhibiting every desire that is normal to me. 
If only I could be alone with you and my work—” He 
paused, clasping his right elbow and biting his lips with 
pain. 

“Hugh, have you hurt your arm ?” 

“A little. Perhaps you’d loan me your scarf and help 
me to bind my arm across my chest.” 

Miriam snatched the knit scarf from her shoulders. 
“Do you think it’s broken, Hughie? O my dear, your 
hand is terribly swollen! You mustn’t think of starting 
out.” 

“Nonsense, Miriam! Tie me up, then I’ll get the grub 
out of the plane and be off.” 

She bandaged him skillfully. He would not allow her 
to go near the plane, but after a long effort he managed 
to hoist out the wicker hamper of food that always accom¬ 
panied the Dinosaur on its flights. Under his direction, 
Miriam filled his pockets with a two days’ meager supply 
of chocolate, meat cubes and wafers. They filled a small 
canteen with tepid water from the tank in the plane, and 
Hugh was ready for the journey. 

Had he not been handicapped by the broken arm, he 
believed that he could with Miriam’s help have lowered 
himself from the ledge to the slanting wall below and thus 
have reached the floor of the canyon. But this was not to 
be considered, nor did he believe Jessie for all her fine 
strength and agility had been able to accomplish this alone. 
She must have found it possible to scramble up the moun- 


220 


THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

tain wall above the ledge, and this was the way Hugh pro- 
posed to follow. 

Miriam watched him anxiously. His path decided upon, 
he turned to her with sudden tenderness. 

“Miriam, you believe that I ought to go?” 

“Yes, Hughie. Don’t bother about me. I shall be 

perfectly safe.” 

“I know. Nevertheless, I can’t bear to leave you. It 
would be wonderful to be alone here with you—for as long 
as they would leave us alone!” 

Miriam clung to him helplessly for a moment, hiding 
her face against his shoulder. 

“We’re on the lap of the gods,” she whispered, finally. 
“Kiss me, Hugh, and go, while I still have strength to 
send you.” 

He kissed her lingeringly, then turned toward the wall. 
Miriam gave a little sob. 

“Hugh! Hugh! I shall be alone with my thoughts so 
long! Tell me that it’s not altogether the strain of politics 
that gives your eyes the look they wear. Yet the look 
wasn’t there before.” 

Hugh smiled. “Why not let it be the result of politics? 
You wouldn’t want it to be something mysterious, would 
you? You are the only person in the world who knows 
how I feel about my work and what giving it up costs 
me. But what does that matter? Some day—I don’t 
know how—but some day, you and I will be alone, lifting 
the curtain of the past. That’s the glorious thought that’s 
pulling me through.” 

“You’d give up politics quite happily?” asked Miriam. 
“Even though you have discovered your power to make 
people see things as you see them?” 

“I can make them see only the Old Sioux Tract as I see 
it,” replied Hugh soberly. 


BIG FANG 


221 


He began carefully to work his way inch by inch up the 
yellow face of the mountain. Miriam stood watching him, 
her eyes tragic, her delicately cut lips twitching as though 
she found it difficult to maintain the poise habitual to her. 

Hugh progressed upward slowly, very slowly. Now he 
found foothold in a crevice, handhold on a sage-brush 
root, and lifted himself to a projecting rock. Now he 
crawled gingerly along an upward slanting crack—no 
handhold—his body pressed hard against the scaling wall, 
one foot carefully following the other, every muscle 
cramping until he was grateful that the hospitable crack 
abruptly ended and he must take to the even more perilous 
way of tugging himself upward by sheer lift from root to 
root. His injured arm was agony. He was accustomed 
to thus perilously scrambling over the face of the moun¬ 
tains in his prospecting work, but not thus hampered. The 
pain made him giddy. Again and again he clung to a frail 
root, face pressed hard against the rock, eyes closed, won¬ 
dering with an outward sense whether or not his hold 
must slip and he be dashed to pieces in the depths below. 

Again and again he slid back, a foot, two feet, shale 
scraping his cheek and chin, only to bring up on some 
fragile promontory, and from there after balancing for a 
ghastly moment to go on with the ascent once more. 

But he was inured to this sort of death play, and his 
mind dealt mechanically with the difficulties of the climb 
while it gave its real attention to the fact that something 
far more hazardous, far more tremendous in its signifi¬ 
cance than this tense scaling of the mountainside was 
threatening him. He would not permit himself to ac¬ 
knowledge what it was that imperiled his peace of mind. 
He only allowed himself to face once more that sense of 
cosmic loneliness which always visited him when he felt 
himself out of step with the awful march of the ages 


222 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

which it was the fate of his mind always to envisage. 
Miriam, Jessie, the Old Sioux Tract, Johnny, Pink, were 
suddenly of no importance. He was utterly alone. He 
and his tiny span of life. So stupendously important to 
himself; of such trivial necessity to the ages. Yet of 
necessity so real, however small, that he must resume his 
step or know no peace. It was agony. 

Above him, the deep blue of the sky was cut clearly 
across by the yellow edge of the mountain wall. He did 
not look down but kept his gaze fixed on the difficult hori¬ 
zon line. Painfully but surely it drew nearer. At noon 
he lifted a weary knee to the final edge and rolled slowly 
onto the fair slope of the peak. 

He rested for a little while, then got to his feet. He 
was on the summit of the highest peak of the range. To 
the east lay a chaos of orange crests and gold and purple 
mesas, with far slopes clothed in the dull green splendor 
of the Forest Reserve. On either hand lay the long ridge 
that culminated in the mighty yellow mountain head on 
which he stood. His station surely was suited to his 
mood; solitary, wind swept, intimate to the infinite reaches 
of the sky. His slender, khaki-clad figure, his tanned and 
thought-worn face were singularly in harmony with the 
aspect of the mountain peak and with the temper of his 
mind. 

Hugh had no doubts as to the geography of the locality. 
He knew that this was the wild-horse country in which 
Red Wolf had found the gray stallion. He knew that 
due east, beyond and beneath the rolling sea of purple 
clouds that now concealed, now revealed the distant val¬ 
leys lay the horse ranch whither he was sure Jessie was 
making her way. He believed he could make it himself 
by midnight, if he did not before that time meet a rescue 
party sent back by Jessie. 


BIG FANG 


223 

He ate sparingly, then started down the mountain slope. 

It was not yet sunset when he reached the bed of the 
creek at the foot of the peak. The creek itself was at this 
season only a narrow brook. That at other times it was 
a rushing torrent was attested by the driftwood lying high 
up on the mountainside. The whole section was pro¬ 
foundly eroded. Grotesque pillars of sandstone rose 
abruptly on every hand. The steep banks of the creek 
were cut into a thousand fantastic shapes. 

Hugh stared about him with a quick concentration of 
interest. The tilt of strata in this section of Wyoming 
was to the north. He had supposed the strata that lay so 
near the surface of the Old Sioux Tract would here, so 
much farther south, be too deep buried for visual pros¬ 
pecting. And yet on the pillar in the shade of which he 
had paused was the impress of a palm leaf and of horse¬ 
tail rushes; fossil vegetation of the strata that bore the 
dinosaurs. He glanced at the sun, thought of Miriam 
alone on the ledge, and Jessie, struggling on toward the 
horse ranch, then set his teeth and held his course to the 
east. 

And virtue had its immediate reward, for, almost at 
once, in the sandstone bank which he began to climb, he 
came upon a deep brown out-cropping which brought him 
to his knees for closer observation. The brown mass was 
a fossil vertebra of huge proportions. Hugh studied it 
closely, his cheeks flushing with excitement. A rare and 
important find lay in this forsaken bank, he was very sure. 
He gazed at the out-cropping lovingly, then rose, marked 
the locality well, and made his way on eastward, over the 
burning dancing sands of the bad lands. And he was 
shaken by temptation as a drunkard is shaken by the smell 
of alcohol. But he plodded on. 

The sun had slipped behind the great head of Big Fang 


224 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

and all the strange distorted out-croppings and erosions 
of the bad lands danced in fantastic mockery in front of 
Hugh’s pain-blurred vision before he came upon Jessie 
with the rescue party. For a moment, he thought them 
only a part of the crimson, dancing landscape. Then he 
heard Jessie’s voice, “Hughie! O Hughie!” He leaned 
against a pillar and waited. Jessie and Heckle, the rancher, 
with a couple of cowboys, leading extra horses, rode up 
to him. 

“Hello!” said Hugh. “That was quick work, Jess.” 

“Sorry about the accident,” said Heckle, a brawny man 
in his late forties. “What’s happened to your arm, Mr. 
Stewart ?” 

“Guess I broke it, last night, when the old bird skidded 
down the mountainside. Got a horse for me ? I think the 
best move will be from the mountain top. I can show you 
the exact spot.” 

“You go back to the ranch, Hughie, and let them take 
you in the car to Fort Sioux,” said Jessie. “You must 
get to the doctor as soon as you can. You must be in 
misery.” 

“I am going on up with you all,” insisted Hugh. 
“You’ll need all the help you can get.” 

“You’ll be no help in the shape you’re in!” exclaimed 
Heckle. “The young lady up there ain’t hurt and is fairly 
husky, as I understand it. ’T won’t take any time at all 
to work her up off that ledge.” 

“Two of you must go down and come up with her,” 
insisted Hugh. “And the plane must be roped to the 
rocks or the wind will dislodge it. Don’t frighten her any 
more than you can help. She hasn’t a Wyoming girl’s 
nerves. Maybe I’d better get on to a doctor. Don’t do 
anything but secure the plane to the ledge. I’ll send Mar¬ 
ten back to superintend lowering it off the ledge. It can 


BIG FANG 


225 

be handled best that way. I’d have come by that route 
myself if it hadn’t been for this arm.” 

Hugh’s voice died away in a mumble of pain. 

“Can you get back to the ranch alone, Hughie?” asked 
Jessie, anxiously. “I think you need me more than Mir¬ 
iam does.” 

“Pshaw! Heckle might wander over Big Fang for two 
days without locating Miriam’s ledge. You’ve got to guide 
him, Jessie. Give me a horse, Heckle, old man, and I 
won’t hold you longer.” 

One of the cowboys helped him to mount a horse which 
gratefully and immediately picked up the home trail. Jes¬ 
sie watched him disappear into the dusk, then led the way 
on toward the peak. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE LONE SPRING VOTE 

N INE o’clock brought Hugh to the ranch where Mrs. 

Heckle and her son Jimmie took him in hand. Jim¬ 
mie, a boy of twenty, was deeply impressed by the impor¬ 
tance of having in charge the injured nominee for the 
governorship. 

It was a fifty-mile run to Fort Sioux over a road of 
unbelievable roughness. Hugh made the trip endurable 
by talking to the boy, telling him of the discovery of the 
fossil vertebra, and quizzing him regarding any possible 
fossil remains he might have observed in the bad lands 
which bordered Big Fang. Jimmie was entirely un¬ 
informed but keenly interested, and Hugh found himself 
describing the fascination of paleontology to the boy with 
all the enthusiasm with which he had sought to convert 
his state-wide audiences. Jimmie, before the trip was 
over, announced his intention of exploring the bad lands 
himself, and when Hugh became governor, of getting 
Hugh to incorporate all the section he found to be fossil 
bearing into the reserved area. By the time they drew up 
at the doctor’s door, Hugh had bound the youngster to 
him by the heady bonds of hero worship. He sent him 
on to the Indian Massacre for a few hours’ sleep, after 
having arranged for him to take Marten back with him 
to rescue the Dinosaur. Then he gave himself up to the 
doctor. 


226 


THE LONE SPRING VOTE 227 

It was late in the afternoon before Hugh woke from 
the sleep into which he finally dropped, after the doctor 
had helped him to bed in The Lariat. Johnny Parnell was 
sitting by the cot smoking. 

“Well!” said Johnny. “What was the name of that 
horse that had wings ? Don’t you think you’re crowding 
the old gray stallion to try to make him into one of them?” 

“My nomination went to my head,” returned Hugh. 

“Or were you working out a new way to solve the 
woman problem?” Johnny went on. “Lord, Hughie, you 
sure have all the courage of ignorance! How’s the arm, 
old timer?” 

“It will do,” replied Hugh. “Help me to shave, will 
you, Johnny? Did Marten get off all right with young 
Jimmie Heckle?” 

“Yes, to both questions,” Johnny threw his cigarette out 
the window and picked up Plugh’s razor. “Jimmie is the 
most important man in Wyoming, without doubt. Inci¬ 
dentally, Grafton is back in town and took great in¬ 
terest in Jimmie’s story of your mishap. He knows all 
about it, even down to the fact that young Heckle is now 
your partner in the bone-digging business.” 

Hugh grunted. “Much good may it do him!” and 
began his difficult toilet. 

Jessie and Miriam returned to Fort Sioux the next day 
in the Dinosaur, the latter somewhat battle scarred, but, 
Marten insisted, as good as new. Fort Sioux, what with 
one aspect and another of Hugh’s private and public af¬ 
fairs, was entirely consumed with curiosity and flocked to 
meet the returned adventurers. Even Pink was there, still 
swollen with secret importance and blatant impatience. 
Hugh, making his way slowly through the crowd, saw 
Jessie and Miriam leave the machine, and apparently on 
cordial terms with each other, smile as they greeted Pink. 


228 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

There was no mistaking the popularity of Jessie or, for 
that matter, of Marten and the Dinosaur. But, in all that 
crowd, no one but Pink and Principal Jones greeted Mir¬ 
iam. She gave no evidence that she heeded the slight. 
She stood beside Jessie, looking delicate and very lovely 
in contrast with Jessie's athletic frame and strong, almost 
boyish face. Pink, having made way for the school man, 
stared pop-eyed at Miriam, then apparently with an over¬ 
whelming inspiration, he crowded forward again. 

“Listen, partner, are you worried about results?" he 
asked. ^ 

Miriam stared at him. “What are you talking about, 
Mr. Morgan?" she returned, in a voice of such cutting 
quality that Pink blinked and gasped. Every one within 
hearing turned to look at him. Hugh, coming up just in 
time to hear query and counter query, scowled and shoul¬ 
dered Pink aside while he greeted the two women. Pink 
muttering to himself withdrew among the crowd. 

“Any trouble getting out, Miriam?” asked Hugh. “Are 
you awfully done up?" 

“Not a bit, Hughie. I’m quite in shape to go on with 
my trip. I shall take the six o’clock westward-bound this 
evening." Miriam spoke in a clear voice that carried far. 

“You haven’t much time to waste then," said Hugh, 
looking at his watch. “Marten, will you bring Miss 
Page’s suitcase to the station?" He turned back to 
Miriam. “I’ll walk along with you." 

He took'her arm and, entirely indifferent to the inter¬ 
ested assemblage, he lifted his hat to Jessie, and led Miriam 
out of the crowd. 

“Miriam!" he burst forth, “you can’t go this way! I 
want to tell you so much more than I could put into the 
letters!" 

Miriam gave him a curious glance, then smiled whim- 


THE LONE SPRING VOTE 


229 

sically. “No one was ever a more inconsistent lover than 
you, Hughie! But, after all, we understand each other! 
And nothing matters except that we keep ourselves for 
each other!” 

“No! No! That’s not so! We’re not children to blind 
ourselves with such generalities. Everything matters, 
however much we will it not to. Life demands unrelent¬ 
ingly that we get into stride with it and for some of us it 
seems impossible to meet the demand. That’s what I 
want to talk to you about.” 

Miriam looked up into his face with clear-seeing gray 
eyes. “Hughie, it’s what I’m lighting to do, get you into 
that stride. Never forget that, will you?” 

Hugh nodded. “Your sympathy has saved my soul 
alive. Without your letters I couldn’t have carried on.” 

“And you feel that the carrying on is worth while, 
Hughie? Tell me that you do.” 

Hugh hesitated. “I don’t regret what I’m doing. I do 
regret the necessity for it. No, that’s not true, either.” 
He paused and looked up at the brilliant canyon walls that 
so closely hemmed him in. Finally he said slowly, “We’re 
harassed by desires too big for us, by dreams that belong 
to the race, not to an individual.” 

Miriam’s expression was troubled. For a moment she 
hesitated for words, then said with sudden firmness, “But 
I know I am right in my dreams for you.” 

Hugh unexpectedly smiled. “There’s nothing like 
knowing what you want, is there, Miss Assurance?” 

Miriam smiled in response. “Nothing indeed, old T 
would I wot not what!’ Hughie, have I hurt your cam¬ 
paign by coming? I was an idiot. But I really didn’t 
realize what a little town like Fort Sioux could do to a 
woman.” 

“It’s without mercy once its thumbs are down for 


230 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

woman or man,” said Hugh. “I don’t care in the least 
whether you’ve harmed the campaign or not.” 

They had reached the station now, and they said good- 
by under the frankly watchful eye of the station master. 
After Miriam’s train had pulled out, Hugh returned to 
The Lariat, where Mrs. Ellis, Mrs. Morgan and Johnny 
Parnell were waiting to formulate the pre-election cam¬ 
paign with him. 

If this were the story of an election fight, one could 
follow Hugh and Marten and the Dinosaur through sev¬ 
eral months of adventure, melodramatic enough to satisfy 
and satiate an inveterate motion-picture habitue. For 
Wyoming spent the summer and the early fall in the throes 
of a fight so complicated and so bitter that echoes of it 
sounded from coast to coast. And Hugh was the center 
point on which the contending forces rallied. 

In some aspects, it was a sex war, with the old guard 
determined that the women should not get a grip on legis¬ 
lation such as the passing of the Children’s Code would 
give them. It was astounding, considering the generally 
admitted rightness of the code, how bitterly men fought 
it, how deeply they feared the prestige and power it would 
give the women. In other aspects, women stood against 
women. For there is no sex in cupidity, and that section 
of Wyoming which would be benefited by the Thumb 
Butte project fought Hugh with consistent venom. The 
sheep raisers, the homesteaders, the mining men resented 
the rallying of the cattlemen to Hugh’s banner, and within 
these groups actually comprising most of the male popu¬ 
lation of Wyoming, to say nothing of the wives and 
daughters, raged a particular and concentrated form of 
guerrilla warfare that smacked of the days of Sioux 
insurrections. 

For the first few weeks of the campaign there was, as 


THE LONE SPRING VOTE 231 

Mrs. Ellis had prophesied, a great deal of nasty innuendo 
about Hugh and Miriam that for a time caused not a little 
disaffection among the women. But the opposition over¬ 
played their hand in meanness and the reaction that Mrs. 
Morgan had foreseen set in, the women coming to the 
rescue of the Gray Stallion’s moral character with a gusto 
that caused this method of attack to be dropped very 
suddenly. Mrs. Ellis was relieved, but her fears were not 
entirely laid and she said so to Mrs. Morgan. Whereupon 
Mrs. Morgan made a forecast. And for the only time in 
the history of the campaign Mrs. Ellis agreed with her 
without reservation. Said Mrs. Morgan : 

“We can elect him, in spite of the Page woman. But 
after he is governor, he’ll have to drop her. No one in 
the state will stand for domestic complications in the life 
of the state’s chief executive.” 

But though the two were in such unique agreement, it 
is noteworthy that neither of them spoke of the matter to 
Hugh. 

As the summer wore on, Hugh grew unutterably weary 
of the muck of the fight. His ears tired of the sound of 
hand-clapping. PI is first, half humorous, half cynical 
amusement in turning Pink’s insolent epithet into a party 
title changed to a contemptuous surprise that he could have 
been the author of an idea so inane. The exhilaration of 
mad flights in the Dinosaur high among the eagles became 
utter tedium. He found his mind turning with increasing 
longing to the old days of freedom when even Jessie’s 
constant gibing could not deeply mar the wonder of his 
work. 

But neither Mrs. Ellis nor Marten, who grew to know 
him best, ever heard him complain. He had set his long 
jaw for the end in view. 

By October his splendid nerves began to show strain, 


232 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

due less perhaps to actual physical exertion than to the 
more insidious effects of strenuous self-control. Mrs. 
Ellis watched his increasing symptoms of strain with con¬ 
siderable anxiety and talked with Johnny Parnell about the 
possibility of giving Hugh a week’s rest. But Hugh 
refused all suggestions of this order. 

One of the most important of all of Hugh’s speaking 
engagements had been the most difficult to procure. It 
was in the town of Lone Spring, the center of the power¬ 
ful Mormon community, and known to be hostile to the 
Gray Stallion. Big Elijah Nelson, the most influential 
Mormon in Wyoming, lived in Lone Spring. It had been 
he who had held the town against Hugh. And it was 
Johnny Parnell, with his powerful backing of cattle 
raisers, who finally won a most grudging consent from 
Big Elijah for Hugh to speak in the Lone Spring school- 
house, which was the town center. A tremendous amount 
hung on this consent, for if Hugh succeeded in carrying 
Lone Spring, he would carry the whole southwest section 
of the state. 

The day of the speech, late in October, dawned astonish¬ 
ingly mild for the time of year. The first snows were 
long overdue. An unwonted delicate blue haze lay along 
the crest of the canyon walls when PIugh reached the 
hangar. He hurried to Marten’s cabin, surprised that 
the airman was not ready to start on the trip. To his 
chagrin he found Marten too ill to fly. It was nothing 
more serious than indigestion, but the poor fellow had 
worked himself into a temperature at the thought of 
leaving Hugh in the lurch, and begged him to delay the 
trip. 

Hugh, however, was entirely obdurate. He was thor¬ 
oughly at home now with the Dinosaur, and the hard-won 
speaking engagement was much too important to be infer- 


THE LONE SPRING VOTE 


233 

fered with by any one’s attack of indigestion. He sympa¬ 
thized with Marten, but went about tuning up the engine 
without delay. 

“Look out for snow,” was Marten’s last contribution. 
“This is a weather breeder!” 

Hugh nodded and adjusted his helmet. He was about 
to climb aboard when Doc Olson galloped up, pulling his 
horse to its haunches beside the Dinosaur. He thrust a 
package into Hugh’s hand, talking rapidly, but what he 
was saying was drowned by the terrific noise of the engine. 
All that Hugh could make out were the words, “Dr. 
Blackson—Lone Spring,” and he nodded and thrust the 
parcel into the breast pocket of his tunic. 

He was due to reach Lone Spring at five o’clock that 
afternoon. But at five o’clock the Dinosaur and Hugh 
were battling for life fifteen thousand feet in the air, in 
the worst blizzard that Hugh ever had experienced. It 
came upon him about three o’clock, a Niagara of driving 
ice pellets, just as he had sent the Dinosaur upward to 
avoid the highest peak of the range. He might have made 
a landing at Indian Wells, which lay at the foot of the 
peak. But as the idea occurred to Hugh, he shook his 
head. “I’ll get on with the war,” he thought grimly. And 
he drove through a Hades of wind and snow. 

For an endless time it seemed to Hugh that the Dino¬ 
saur was as helpless as a feather before a gale. Now it 
dropped in vacuum. Now it whirled in a cyclone spiral 
of ice pellets. Now it drove ahead, irresistibly forced by 
the wind behind. Now it hung motionless, held by the 
motor against a solid wall of opposing wind and snow. 

Finally, when it seemed to Hugh that his numbed hands 
could do no more, without warning the snow cleared and 
the Dinosaur shot into open moonlight. The range, by a 
miracle, had been crossed and a moonlit valley lay below. 


234 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Hugh nosed the Dinosaur carefully downward. They 
were above a dense forest. He lifted the weary plane 
slowly and cruised carefully westward, a storm-tossed 
vessel, seeking harbor. This was the Forest Reserve to 
the south of the range. Somewhere between its west 
border and a triple-headed peak known as the Mormon 
Wives lay the little town Hugh was seeking. He cruised 
for a long half-hour before he spied a spot of orange 
light below. 

“Thank God for that!” he thought. “They are looking 
for me,” and he began a careful descent. 

He landed without mishap, running swiftly across the 
snow-covered plains to the huge log fire that blazed before 
the schoolhouse door. A dozen hands pulled him from the 
Dinosaur. Hugh saw as in a red haze a crowd of men, 
women and children surging about him. He swayed 
dizzily on his feet and was caught by a tall, bearded man 
in mackinaw and high riding boots. 

“Stewart, did you bring the medicine?” cried the man 
in a voice of indescribable anxiety. 

“In my tunic!” Hugh helplessly indicated his breast 
pocket. 

The man, one arm about Hugh’s shoulders, extracted 
the package, suddenly clasped Hugh to him, crying, 
“Thank you! Thank you!” and running through the 
crowd, leaped upon a horse and was gone into the moonlit 
night. 

The crowd began to shout. “Now then, three cheers 
for the Gray Stallion!” and for a moment pandemonium 
reigned. Then while the shouts still echoed in the snow¬ 
laden silence of the neighboring hills, the crowd fell upon 
Hugh, clasping his hands, pounding him on the back and 
gradually moving him into the warmth of the school- 
house. 


THE LONE SPRING VOTE 


23S 

“But look here!” protested Hugh, with a grin, as they 
placed him near the stove and gave him a steaming cup 
of coffee, “this isn’t the kind of welcome you led me to 
expect down here/’ 

“We’d ’a’ welcomed the devil if he’d done what you 
done, Stewart,’’ said a grizzled Mormon. “That boy is 
more to Big Elijah than his wife or his five daughters 
or his three ranches.” 

“He’ll have a fighting chance now,” said a little woman 
who stood in front of Hugh, expectantly holding the 
coffee pot. “Doc said if he could get the anti-toxin within 
twenty-four hours after he telephoned to Fort Sioux he’d 
save him.” 

“Elijah Nelson has a son who’s sick, eh?” asked Hugh. 

“His only boy’s got diphtheria,” replied the woman; 
then she added, looking at Hugh wonderingly, “Didn’t 
you know that?” 

Hugh shook his head. “I just knew that I was carry¬ 
ing some medicine from Doc Olson to your doctor down 
here.” 

“And you didn’t know it was life or death for Big 
Elijah’s son?” demanded Ike Turner, the grizzled Mor¬ 
mon. 

“No,” answered Hugh, apologetically. “Doc gave it 
to me the last minute. The motor made such a racket I 
couldn’t hear anything but Blackson’s name.” 

There was a sudden silence in the room, packed to the 
door though it was. 

“And you didn’t know it was life or death?” insisted 
Turner. 

Again Hugh shook his head. 

“Then,” demanded Turner, “why didn’t you stop at 
Indian Wells instead of fighting through that blizzard up 
in the mountains ? You must have made the Wells early in 


236 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

the afternoon. And that was the god-awfulest storm 
these parts has showed up for years/’ 

“I wish I could claim credit with Big Elijah.” Hugh’s 
voice was regretful. “But, as a matter of fact, all that 
I thought when I reached Indian Wells was ‘Let’s get on 
with the war,’ and I came on through.” 

“You came on through!” repeated Turner in an awe¬ 
struck voice. “And we thought you was just one of these 
kind of sissy professor fellows!” He turned to the 
breathless room. “Folks, here’s a guy that just ‘came on 
through’ because he had a date here—as near as I can 
make out, that’s his only reason.” He turned back to 
Hugh. “Did you notice any storm up there, Stewart?” 
this with a broad grin. 

“You can bet there was a storm!” exclaimed Hugh. 
“The worst I’ve ever seen. Toward the last I thought the 
end had come for the little old Dinosaur. In fact, during 
the last four hours, it was a gamble. I’m not so much of 
a driver, you know.” 

“He ain’t so much of a driver!” repeated Turner to the 
crowd. “But he just came on through—through a life 
and death fight up there alone in hell—why, gosh dam 
you, Stewart, you’re a man!” He gave Hugh a blow on 
the back that seemed to set loose the room in an uproar 
of cheers and applause. 

Hugh shook his head, his eyes turning appealingly from 
one to another. 

Finally the woman with the coffee pot succeeded in 
making herself heard. 

“Why not let him go to bed and make his speech 
tomorrow?” 

“Right!” exclaimed Turner. “You’re to stay at my 
house, Stewart. It’s right beyond the schoolhouse here.” 


THE LONE SPRING VOTE 237 

He hustled Hugh out the rear door and across the 
snowy fields to a log house, from which a welcoming light 
shone. And Hugh slept until the tardy autumn sun was 
well above the mountains the next morning. 

Big Elijah appeared while Hugh was at breakfast. He 
strode up to put a big white cowman’s hand on Hugh’s 
shoulder. 

“The boy will live,” he said. 

Hugh lifted his tired face to stare deep into the Mor¬ 
mon father’s eyes. “I’m glad,” he returned simply. 

Big Elijah’s face twisted convulsively. “You sabez, 
Stewart, that he’s my only son, the only boy in a big con¬ 
nection and that nothing but anti-toxin could save him.” 

Hugh nodded. “They told me last night. Too bad 
I was delayed by the storm.” 

The Mormon’s grip on Hugh’s shoulder tightened. 
“Stewart, you don’t have to make any speech here. You’ve 
got Lone Spring hanging from your saddle now.” 

“You know I don’t deserve such gratitude, Nelson. I 
didn’t know it was your son, or really, that any one wa? 
seriously sick.” 

A grin suddenly appeared on Big Elijah’s serious face. 
“Sure, I know it—Governor! You don’t have to make a 
speech down here. Gosh, you can have your bone corral 
if you want it, or anything else the Mormons can get you 
in Wyoming.” 

“He sure can!” exclaimed Ike, who came in to hear Big 
Elijah’s last statement. “But, Elijah, you’d ought to let 
him make the speech. He’s the kind of a nice fool that 
won’t think he’s earned our vote if he don’t.” 

“All right,” agreed Big Elijah, then added, looking at 
Hugh keenly, “but just a short one. Some bad strain 
coming through that storm, eh, Stewart ?” 


238 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“A little!” Hugh grinned in his turn. “But not as 
much of a strain as trying to save a ‘bone corral.’ ” 

Both his hearers laughed and left him to finish his 
breakfast in the quiet of the kitchen. 

Thus it was that the Mormon vote was made solid for 
the Gray Stallion. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE GOVERNOR ELECT 

tTUGH’S return to Fort Sioux was uneventful. He 
*■ landed there late in the afternoon of the next day 
and went directly to The Lariat. The storm had not been 
heavy in the canyon nor had it been bad on the plains 
above, but word had come that in the great altitudes of 
the ranges to the south it had been a terrible affair. The 
telephone wire to Indian Wells and Lone Spring was down 
and so Hugh received an exceedingly warm welcome from 
Johnny Parnell, Red Wolf and Principal Jones, who were 
keeping shop. 

It was while Hugh was trying to explain just why he 
had made only a fifteen-minute speech at Lone Spring 
that young Jimmie Heckle came in, obviously big with 
news. 

“Thought while I was waiting for the snows to melt 
I’d come in and report, Mr. Stewart,” he said, resting a 
wet riding boot against the stove. “Say, Pm digging up 
that fossil you told me about, above the creek bed. He’s 
lying on his side, sixty feet long. I got the head out fine. 
It’s all covered with kind of big warts. The rest of the 
backbone was busted into a million pieces, but the legs and 
tail, O boy! They’d give anybody the jim-jams. The 
hip bones-” 

“Wait a minute, Jimmie!” exclaimed Hugh. “I thought 
you promised me that you’d only locate and not dig up the 
fossils. I told you the digging was an expert’s job.” 

239 



240 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“I’ve done a fine job!” protested Jimmie, not without 
an injured note in his young, voice. 

“What did you do with the broken parts of the back¬ 
bone?” asked Hugh. 

“I dumped those over the edge of the mesa. But the 
whole bones are all there.” 

Hugh groaned. “What’s wrong with that?” demanded 
Jimmie. “It’s a wonderful fossil.” 

“Who told you that?” demanded Hugh. 

“Mr. Grafton, but don’t you let on you know he did.” 

“Grafton!” exclaimed Johnny Parnell and Principal 
Jones. 

“Yes, he was interested when I told him about fossils 
that time I brought Mr. Stewart in. He’s been out with 
me two or three times. He really located this bird. But 
I’ve done all the work.” 

Jimmie lighted a cigarette defiantly. 

Hugh took a turn up and down the room and came back 
to put a sinewy hand on the youngster’s shoulder. 

“Jimmie, old man, you’re a good scout, and Pm obliged 
to you. But will you promise not to touch that fossil 
again until I tell you to?” 

“Sure, I will promise.” Jimmie’s self-respect was 
immediately restored by the petitioning note in Hugh’s 
voice. “I took some pictures of it and I’ll send ’em to 
you when they’re done. Real close-ups, so you can see the 
skull and some petrified skin, like Grafton told me to.” 

“Thanks, old man,” returned Hugh. 

“That’s all right!” Jimmie rebuttoned his short leather 
rider’s coat. “I’m going over to the Indian Massacre for 
supper. Anybody join me?” 

“I might later,” said Johnny Parnell. v 

“I’ll wait for you in the office!” Jimmie strode out, 
banging the door behind him. 


THE GOVERNOR ELECT 


241 

The three men stared at each other. “What’s the great 
idea?” demanded Johnny. “They’d better hobble that kid 
or he’ll run himself to death.” 

“They’ll lose me a perfectly good dinosaur if they keep 
it up,” said Hugh. “I suppose that fool of a Grafton 
thinks he’s going to bribe me with the handsome gift of 
an alleged fossil discovery!” 

“I’m going out to pump young Jimmie dry,” exclaimed 
Johnny. He disappeared abruptly. 

“Lord, I’d like to go out and see that job!” Hugh 
turned to Principal Jones with a smile. 

The old man nodded. “Tempts you, doesn’t it, 
Hughie ?” 

“Yes. You can’t dream how much! If it weren’t 

for-” He jerked himself together. “Let’s go to the 

Chinaman’s for supper. I can’t stand the thought of 
Jimmie’s gab, tonight.” 

Jones looked at Hugh keenly, but said nothing. 

When Hugh returned from supper, he found Johnny 
Parnell standing before the stove. He did not greet 
Hugh, but walked very deliberately over to the door and 
locked it. 

“What’s the matter, Johnny?” asked Hugh. 

Johnny’s ruddy face was set. “I don’t want to be inter¬ 
rupted by the women folks. LIughie, you will recall that 
Jimmie took Grafton back to the horse ranch with him and 
that Grafton was there when they brought in Miriam 
Page from her night on the ledge.” 

Hugh, in his old place against the counter while he 
lighted his pipe, nodded. 

“Jimmie says that they knew each other and had a long 
talk together.” 

“What of it?” grunted Hugh, while his fingers tight¬ 
ened on his pipe bowl. 



242 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“I don’t know what of it, Hughie. But I feel badly 
about what I picked out of Jimmie. He was in the stable 
while Grafton and Miss Page talked in the corral. He 
doesn’t seem to have paid a lot of attention to what they 
said. But Grafton was reporting to her about some ses¬ 
sions he’d had with old Whitson. And Jimmie said she 
was evidently some one Grafton had to report to.” 

Hugh stared at Johnny Parnell until the silence became, 
for Johnny, at least, unendurable. 

“What of it, now, Hughie?” 

Still Hugh did not answer. A dozen aspects of Miriam 
passed through his mind. Miriam in the launch, Miriam 
in the cave, Miriam in the saddle, Miriam grave, gay, 
girlish, mature, but always Miriam the idealist, urging 
him on to fine achievement. And yet—and yet—vague 
queries about her business side, queries that never had 
become suspicions now projected themselves clearly into 
his thought. She was ambitious—inordinately ambi¬ 
tious—for power—for prestige. She- Furious with 

himself for the thought, Hugh exclaimed tensely: 

“Johnny, your suspicions are infamous—inconceiv¬ 
able !” 

“I knew you’d feel like that. But, Hughie, if she is 
working with the Eastern Electric while apparently all for 
you, there’s some kind of a double-cross waiting for you, 
and I ain’t going to rest till I get to the bottom of it. 
Hughie, aside from caring for her, do you trust her? A 
man can love a woman, every hair of her head, without 
trusting her.” 

“I couldn’t!” replied Hugh. “I trust Miriam Page as 
I would my own mother.” 

Johnny took a turn or two up and down the room, 
pausing after a moment in front of Hugh. 

“You remember you sort of blackmailed me into coming 



THE GOVERNOR ELECT 243 

in with you, Hughie, and that I made a break about Pink 
which you didn’t follow up.” 

“Yes,” Hugh replied. 

“Haven’t you ever thought it was funny Pink let you 
alone after you’d kicked him out of The Lariat?” 

“To tell the truth, Johnny, I never gave him much 
thought. He is small fry in this big game.” 

“Well, I’ll tell you why he’s let you alone. I’ve been 
blackmailing him—about the cave matter. Now, didn’t 
you ever wonder how Pink ever got in with the Eastern 
Electric Corporation?” 

“Yes, I remember at first, we all did. Then it seemed 
to me natural enough that they should have used him as 
they did.” 

“Perhaps it was,” agreed Johnny. “I don’t know any¬ 
thing to the contrary. But do you recall that when Miss 
Page and Jessie returned from Heckle’s last spring, Pink, 
he goes up to Miss Page and calls her partner and asks 
her if she worried about results. Now, wasn’t that a 
darned funny thing for Pink to do?” 

“I don’t know that it was,” replied Hugh, carefully. 

“All right! Maybe it wasn’t darned funny. But at 
least it showed that Pink felt he knew her pretty well. 
Now, have you got the nerve to let me call Pink in here 
and blackmail him into telling us what he knows, if any¬ 
thing?” 

He watched Hugh with an anxiety he did not attempt 
to disguise. 

“God knows, Hughie, I don’t want to add to your 
troubles, but we’ve got to know the truth about this, old 
man. Let’s find out what we really are up against.” 

“I’m perfectly willing for you to pump Pink,” said 
Hugh, slowly refilling his pipe. 

Johnny strode out of the shop. During his absence 


244 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Hugh sat with his unlighted pipe in his hand, staring 
fixedly at the stove. When the cowman came in, trailing 
Pink behind him, Hugh hastily struck a match and sat 
down, motioning the two others to seats before the stove. 

“Now what?” said Pink. 

“You remember that little party in the cave, Pink?” 
asked Johnny. “The little matter of the gray stallion?” 

Pink stared at Johnny truculently. 

“Do you?” shouted the cowman with sudden exas¬ 
peration. 

“I ain't saying. This isn’t a court of justice.” 

“It sure ain’t,” roared Johnny. “You know what it is. 
Do you remember the cave and the gray stallion?” 

“Yes,” replied Pink. “Don’t get so het up, Johnny.” 

“Well, I am het up. Now, listen, Pink! So far 
Hughie has no information about those matters. And I 
don’t plan to give him any if you’ll come through on 
something else. How did you get in touch with the 
Eastern Electric Corporation?” 

“If I tell that, I lose the rest of my fee,” replied Pink, 
promptly. 

“No, you won’t. No one will ever know from Hughie 
or me.” 

“I wouldn’t trust you.” Pink shook his head firmly. 

“Then Hughie gets facts from me about the cave.” 

Pink turned purple. The river roared endlessly. Some 
one outside gave a Sioux war whoop, followed by 
laughter. 

“If I do tell,” said Pink, at last, “will you both swear 
not to give me away?” 

“I will,” replied Johnny. 

“I will,” said Hugh in a low voice. 

“Well, I can trust you both, even if we are enemies. It 
was Miriam Page got me into it. Hang it, I just as soon 


THE GOVERNOR ELECT 


245 

get even with her for what she’s done to Jessie! Jess is 
my only child, even if we don’t get along. She got me in.” 

“When?” demanded Johnny,, huskily. 

“On her first trip out here. I can tell you just how it 
was.” Pink repeated the conversation that had taken place 
in the office of the Indian Massacre. 

Hugh did not move. When Pink had finished, Johnny 
said abruptly, “That’s all, Pink! You can beat it now.” 

“I ain’t going to beat it right away. I want Hugh to 
apologize for kicking me.” 

Johnny gazed at Pink as though he was beholding a 
madman. “You poor locoed fool,” he roared. “Get, 
while the getting is good!” 

Pink snorted and stared at Hugh. But Hugh heard 
nothing, saw nothing. Pink, with, for him, rare discre¬ 
tion, left without further speech. Johnny turned to stare 
in his turn at Hugh, this time with his good-natured face 
working. 

“I just want to say one thing, Hughie, that worries me 
nights, and when I see other things like this pressing on 
you and how hard you take things that don’t mean any¬ 
thing to other folks. I mean, I was awful drunk, and it 
was entirely accidental my being at the cave, and I don’t 
think I did anything, though that bum of a Pink claims 
I did.” 

Hugh looked up. “Don’t worry about it, Johnny.” 
He paused and with great effort focused his thought on 
the cowman. “Don’t worry about that, Johnny, but for 
God’s sake, tell me the truth. Are you playing straight 
with me now? I mean—what I mean is, have I one person 
I can think of that isn’t using me. We—that is you and I 
were almost born together.” 

“I’m your honest-to-God friend, Hughie, old timer.” 

“Do you believe she did it, Johnny?” 


246 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“I know she did. Don't fight against it, Hughie. Let 
it soak in, wallow in it, and then get the best of it. No 
woman is worth it, Hughie. Except Jessie.” 

Hugh sat with his pipe in his teeth, staring at the wall. 
Johnny watched him anxiously. But for five minutes the 
Gray Stallion did not stir. Then he suddenly emptied 
the pipe, put it deliberately into his pocket and slowly 
twisted his long hands together with such passion that 
Johnny heard the bones crack. Assured then that con¬ 
viction had struck home, but with infinite compassion in 
his blue eyes, the cowman went softly out. 

And once more, Hugh was alone in The Lariat with a 
crisis of the soul. 

The cost of growth! Dear God, the cost! The twist¬ 
ing, tearing agony of the sloughing away of this muddy 
vestment of personal desire that so closely hems us in. 
The infinite pain of learning that happiness and content 
cannot go hand in hand. World pain this, common to 
human thought, and Hugh was undergoing it to the utter¬ 
most. But superimposed upon this was an agony that 
was the very peak of suffering. Miriam! Miriam! The 
gay, the lovely, the fine! Miriam who urged him on to 
fight for the Children’s Code. Miriam, who understood 
him as no other human being did. Miriam, who was 
worth sacrificing Jessie for, who was pure and disinter¬ 
ested in motive. Miriam, the lovely. 

God in heaven, there was no such Miriam! 

Love that comes with youth is ecstasy. It is wine, 
flooding the veins, thrilling the heart, tinting the w r orld 
with rose. And like the exhilaration of wine, its lift and 
urge must go, its poignant rapture ebb, leaving youth 
none the worse for its visit. But love that comes with 
middle age is not wine. It becomes the very heart’s blood 
and may not go without leaving a ghastly blank behind it. 


247 


THE GOVERNOR ELECT 

The hours slipped by Hugh till dawn. Then he rose 
wearily from his chair and made up a light pack for a 
camping trip. He left The Lariat just as the sun came 
up. He saddled Fossil, tied the pack behind him, mounted 
and rode slowly through the quiet town toward the bridge. 

Marten, coming out of his tent, yawning, called to him: 
“Where to, Gray Stallion?” 

“I’m off for a rest, Marten. Tell anybody who asks 
that I’m camping with Fred and Red Wolf up above the 
cave. But tell ’em not to follow me.” 

Marten eyed Hugh’s face curiously and nodded. But 
as he watched the sagging figure in the saddle he shook his 
head and started out to look for Johnny Parnell. 

Hugh had no dramatic purpose in view. But he felt 
utterly broken and he felt, he told himself, that he could 
no longer carry on the fight for the governorship. The 
demands of the week before election were not to be faced. 

But Hugh was not to reach the camp above the cave. 
For at noon he met Fred and Red Wolf, trekking home¬ 
ward, through the fast melting snow. 

“Thought we’d come in for a while and get some news,” 
explained Fred. “Anything wrong, Hughie?” 

“I need a rest,” replied Hugh. He eyed the sheep 
wagon and the horses. “How are you off for grub, boys? 
Got a few days’ supply?” 

“Sure!” answered Fred. 

“Come along over under Big Fang. There’s a fossil 
there that I want to look at.” 

Red Wolf grinned with satisfaction and turned the 
mule. 

They followed Hugh steadily until the sinking sun 
warned Fred not to temporize longer with Hugh’s mood. 

“Hughie!” he roared, “these horses are tired and 


248 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

hungry and so are we. Turn into that draw to your 
right.” 

To Fred’s surprise, Hugh obeyed without protest. He 
sat in his saddle waiting while the sheep wagon rattled up 
and came to rest in the lee of a sand dune. Nor did he 
attempt to dismount when the team had been unhitched 
and was munching oats at the tailboard of the sheep 
wagon. Fred, grubbing up sage-brush for the evening 
fire, returned Red Wolf’s troubled glance with a shake of 
his head. Red Wolf walked slowly over to the silent, 
drooping figure on Fossil, and laying a bronze hand on 
his knee, said softly: 

“Better let Fossil eat, huh, Hughie?” 

Hugh started. “Yes! Of course, Red Wolf. Though 
he can’t be very hungry. I just took him out of the 
corral.” 

“Then you better get off of him, Hughie.” 

Hugh obediently swung out of the saddle and stood 
with eyes on the afterglow while the Indian led Fossil to 
the rear of the wagon. 

“Come inside, Hughie!” called Fred. “I’ll have grub 
in no time.” 

“I’ll wait here, Fred. Don’t let me be a trouble. I’m 
just tired. Glad to get back to you fellows.” 

“That’s good. You stay out here. Stars heap good 
for tired head,” said Red Wolf. 

They left him alone then until supper was ready, though 
Red Wolf, seemingly engrossed in supplying Fred with 
fuel for the hungry little stove, did not permit the prowl¬ 
ing figure to escape his vision for a moment. 

The supper was rather an extra effort on Fred’s part, 
pancakes and stewed tomatoes being added to the usual 
rabbit stew. Hugh made an effort to talk, but after a 
moment Fred began a long, rambling account of his 


THE GOVERNOR ELECT 


249 

experiences as a turquoise miner, and when he paused Red 
Wolf told a tale of a buffalo hunt in which his father had 
taken valiant part. The two stories lasted until the meal 
was finished. 

“Now take your pipe over on the bunk, Hughie,” said 
Fred, “while Red Wolf and I clean up this mess of 
dishes.” 

“I’d rather go outside, Fred.” 

“Too cold for star-gazing. Do what you’re told for 
once, Hughie.” 

Hugh sat down on the edge of the bunk and lighted his 
pipe. No one spoke until Red Wolf and Fred were estab¬ 
lished on the lockers beside the stove. 

Then Fred said, “Looks to me like getting to be gov¬ 
ernor hardly paid, Hughie. I don’t like your looks.” 

“I’m tired,” said Hugh. 

“Old Sioux Tract, it ain’t big enough pay for that.” 
Red Wolf rolled a cigarette deftly. 

“I’ll be all right after a rest with you two. I ought 
never to have left you. Never.” 

A long pause, then Fred said: “Well, us three old 
timers has wintered and summered together till we’re 
closer than the marriage tie. You can get rid of most 
anything easier than you can get rid of us. Tell us what 
happened, Hughie. You want somebody killed or any¬ 
thing like that?” 

Hugh smiled and shook his head. Red Wolf, who had 
been studying Hugh’s face keenly, asked suddenly: “Your 
wife, she all right? She no make you trouble?” 

“She’s all right,” answered Hugh. 

“That other one,” insisted the Indian, softly. “She all 

right?” 

Hugh’s face twitched. He looked up at his two friends 


250 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

with a desperate sort of appeal for understanding in his 
eyes. 

“She’s the one that got the Eastern Electric Corporation 
in here. At Pink Morgan’s suggestion. She wanted to 
force me away from this work.” 

Astounded silence in the sheep wagon. Outside the 
great rush of night winds. After a long time, Red Wolf 
said, “White women like squaws. Never take one that 
has brain. Make trouble. Fool woman makes best wife.” 

“Don’t dally with any of ’em, is my motto,” grunted 
Fred. “I hope she dies, the Jizebel. Hughie, let ’em all 
go to the devil. You come back to your work.” 

“Yes, Fred,” replied Hugh slowly, “I’ve come back.” 

This was all the reference made to Hugh’s trouble 
during his stay. The next morning the outfit was on its 
way soon after sun-up and a day later made camp at the 
foot of the low mesa on whose top rested the remains of 
Jimmie’s dinosaur. Ten minutes after the camp was 
made, Hugh was absorbed in the study of the fossil frag¬ 
ments which littered the creek bed at the base of the mesa. 

All the rest of the day he worked over the tyran¬ 
nosaurus, conscious that only through this particular labor 
could he hope to ease the mental strain that lay on his brain 
like a burning hand. And that night he slept. 

They were grubstaked only for a week, but Hugh found 
that they could save much of the fossil in that time. Red 
Wolf and Fred, weary as they were after their prolonged 
trip afield, were delighted to see him finding relief and 
plunged into the heavy task with enthusiasm. 

Young Jimmie Pleckle appeared on the third day, with 
Grafton in tow. Both their faces expressed profound 
astonishment as they rounded the base of the mesa and 
came upon the camp. Hugh, tape measure in hand, 


THE GOVERNOR ELECT 


251 

returned Grafton’s look of half-embarrassed surprise with 
one of half-concealed contempt. 

“Well, you put it all over, didn’t you, Grafton?” he said. 
“All but the main point. The dam at Thumb Butte is still 
unbuilt.” 

Grafton looked from Hugh to the fossil fragments 
smeared now with plaster of paris and said, “We’ll begin 
on that before another six months is over.” 

Hugh shrugged his shoulders and turned away. 

Grafton stared at the tall, lean figure, with the face 
worn by thought and the head sagging with the first 
suggestion of defeat, and he followed impulsively after 
Hugh to say: 

“Stewart, through it all I’ve believed that what I’ve 
done was a good thing for you.” 

The look of contempt on Hugh’s face deepened. But 
he had reached the limit of sensation. He had suffered all 
that he could suffer, had been as angry as it was within 
him to feel. Since Miriam had been false, why waste 
energy on hating Grafton? All the others who had 
injured Hugh had been diminished to nothingness by 
Miriam’s treachery. Again he shrugged his shoulders, 
and walking deliberately over to his horse, he said to Red 
Wolf: 

“I’ll go on up and take a look at that outcropping you 
sighted this morning.” 

And he was gone, leaving Grafton to stare stupidly 
after him. 

Hugh rode slowly around the base of Big Fang, sur¬ 
veyed the outcropping, then sat looking thoughtfully up 
the long valley that stretched southward. Sitting thus he 
saw perhaps five miles away a tiny moving specie on the 
floor of the valley. He lifted his field glasses and studied 


252 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

the speck until it disappeared. Then he slowly turned 
Fossil campward. 

The visitors had gone when he reached camp. The men 
were holding supper for him. They both looked at him 
anxiously, but Hugh’s face was less worn than it had 
been. 

“Did Jimmie seem impressed favorably or otherwise 
by the work we’ve been doing?’’ asked Hugh. 

“Well, he opined that there was a lot of drudging con¬ 
nected with science that he didn’t care about,’’ replied 
Fred. “What was the result of your prospecting trip this 
afternoon, Hughie?” 

Suddenly Hugh laughed. “Red Wolf,” he said, “do 
you remember an old corral you and I made fifteen years 
ago to herd wild horses in, up Big Fang canyon?” 

The Indian nodded. “Up on old hay ranch.” 

“Yes,” Hugh went on. “That old trapper Loomis 
homesteaded it once. It was too far from anywhere to be 
worth anything in the old days. But automobiles will 
open this section up. Well, anyhow, I’ll bet Pink Morgan 
has got hold of it and is starting his famous horse ranch. 
Red Wolf, I’ll bet you a hundred dollars that if you work 
your way up there quietly you’ll find that Pink has started 
his stud with the gray stallion. I saw Pink sneaking 
along a coyote trail in that direction a little while ago.” 

Fred jumped excitedly to his feet. “Let’s go up there 
tonight!” 

Hugh shook his head. “No, that’s Red Wolf’s job and 
had better be undertaken after we break camp.” 

Red Wolf nodded, his eyes twinkling, and the three of 
them grinned at one another. 

A few days later Johnny Parnell appeared. When 
Johnny’s Ford slid into the camp, Hugh, in khaki, was 
still engrossed in sorting the broken pieces of vertebrae 


THE GOVERNOR ELECT 


253 

that young Jimmie had tossed over the mesa edge. His 
fare startled the cowman. He looked five years older and 
his eyes were too bright. 

“Hello, Johnny!” he called. “What Jimmie did to this 
set of vertebrae!” 

Johnny strolled slowly over to look at the fossil remains. 
He stood, scowling, for a moment, then turned back to 
Hugh. 

“You’d better come home with me tonight, old man,” 
said Johnny. 

“Not on your life, Johnny!” exclaimed Hugh. “I’ll 
not leave here until I’ve made this dinosaur safe from 
Jimmie and his kind.” Then he paused, and when he 
spoke there was a note in his voice that twisted Johnny’s 
heart. 

“Johnny, I can’t go back till I’ve straightened out my 
life.” 

The cowman put his hand on Hugh’s shoulder. “Old 
timer,” he said, as softly as his great voice would permit, 
“you’ll have to go back. The Eastern Electric Corpora¬ 
tion says you have in the last week broken the terms of 
Bookie’s will and are no longer the owner of the Old 
Sioux Tract. Miriam Page is at the Indian Massacre. 
And, Hughie, yesterday they elected you governor of 
Wyoming!” 

Hugh rose slowly to his full height, staring at Johnny 
with consternation and unbelief struggling in his face. 

“What brought Miriam to Wyoming?” he asked, 

finally. 

“I don’t know,” replied Johnny. “Jessie might be able 
to tell you. She and the lady have had several sessions. 
Hell sure has been popping this week. I’m afraid they’ve 
got vou on the Old Sioux Tract, Hughie.” 

“Running for the governorship was exactly the sort of 


254 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

thing Uncle Bookie wanted to come from his will!” 
exclaimed Hugh. 

“But you apparently chucked everything to return to 
your dinosaur!” Johnny jerked a contemptuous thumb 
toward the recumbent giant. “Lord, Hughie, were you 
off your head?” 

Hugh did not reply. He looked from the fossil frag¬ 
ments at his feet northward, where lay the Old Sioux 
Tract. He was now bereft, indeed! He stood so long in 
silence that Fred and Red Wolf, looming uneasily in the 
offing, finally beckoned to Johnny, who followed them 
behind the sheep wagon for consultation. 

Hugh did not want to see Miriam. Miriam, as he had 
known her, was buried now with Uncle Bookie and his 
mother. The woman who had manipulated the prepos¬ 
terous scheme that had made him governor was a stranger 
to him. As for the governorship! He gave a sardonic 
laugh! 

Johnny, returning from the fruitless consultation, 
found Hugh still staring at the northern horizon. 

“Are you going to let the old Tract go without a strug¬ 
gle?” asked the cowman, bitterly. “Wouldn’t think it of 
you, Hughie, after seeing you in action for the past year. 
Running away, by hooky, because they hit you below the 
belt! Are you the same guy that flew through the blizzard 
to carrt the medicine to Big Elijah’s boy? Hughie, I’m 
ashamed of you!” 

Hugh looked at his old friend curiously. Where, 
indeed, was the man who had flown through that terrible 
storm to keep a speaking date? Was he dead, too, with 
the other dead in whom he had had faith? What was 
there left in life to keep him alive? 

He went back, reluctantly, to those hours in the blizzard. 
Why had he kept on when he might have alighted at 


THE GOVERNOR ELECT 255 

Indian Wells? What was it that had earned him the 
overwhelming plaudits of the Mormons? He had not 
phrased the answer before, but he knew it well enough. 
Nothing appeals more strongly to the human mind than 
the quality of steadfastness. Loyalty in a peculiarly inde¬ 
pendent and virile form was a marked characteristic of 
Hugh. The sudden consciousness that this quality was 
his brought for the first time in a week a sense of warmth 
into his heart. “Steel true and blade straight,” Miriam 
once had quoted to him. “The great Artificer made my 
mate.” Here his heart sank. 

Steel true! He! To whom? To what? To Bookie? 
To Jessie? To Mrs. Ellis? To Wyoming? To himself? 
Heaven help him! The answer to every query was, No! 
His tired eyes turned from the far orange reaches of the 
northward plains to Johnny Parnell, standing before him 
in an agony of apprehension. 

Loyalty. To the land that had bred him. Was that not 
after all the only and ultimate reason left him for living? 

Hugh turned to Fred and Red Wolf. “Can you boys 
finish off this job for me?” he asked. 

“Sure can, Governor,” replied Fred, clearing his throat, 
something like moisture gleaming in his eyes. He could 
not know what had been passing in Hugh’s mind, but the 
mental struggle had been too obvious not to be deeply 
painful to his old friend. 

“Then I’ll go back with you, Johnny,” said Hugh. 

Johnny heaved a stentorian sigh and strode over, spurs 
tinkling, to crank the Ford. 

It was late in the evening when they reached Fort 
Sioux. Hugh slipped quietly into The Lariat to clean up 
before he should be discovered. But he had only closed 
the door when Principal Jones burst into the shop. He 
was followed by Billy Chamberlain. 


256 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Look here, Governor!” shouted Billy. “What’s the 
great idea? Aren’t your old friends good for a share, now 
you’ve gone up in the world?” 

Hugh stood silent for a moment, his eyes on Billy’s 
shameless face. Then he smiled. “All right, Billy!” 
holding out his hand. The barber took it with enthusiasm. 

“Feeling O. K. again, Governor? Darn shame you had 
to turn sick the last week. But I guess it was just as well. 
We put you over stronger with the talk about your sacrifice 
to the cause.” 

Principal Jones winked at Hugh over Billy’s head. 
“There is a crowd gathering, Hughie. Feel up to it?” 

Hugh nodded. “How about Bookie’s will, Principal? 
Has anything been done, actually?” 

“Didn’t Johnny tell you?” asked the school man. 

Hugh shook his head. 

Jones turned to Billy. “Go out and tell that crowd that 
the Governor will be along in a quarter of an hour. And 
keep folks out of here.” Then, as the door slammed after 
the barber, he said, carefully, “Hughie, my boy, they got 
to the judge, evidently. They say the Sioux Tract was 
sold yesterday. We didn’t know who the purchaser was.” 

Hugh whitened beneath his tan. “The thing must be 
grossly illegal.” 

The school man shook his head slowly. “You haven’t 
devoted yourself to The Lariat, Hughie. We all know 
that you’ve done exactly what Bookie hoped the will would 
make you do. But the will doesn’t say so. And you have 
broken the literal terms.” 

“I shall fight it with every ounce there is in me!” ejacu¬ 
lated Hugh. “This is the reason for Billy Chamberlain’s 
crowd coming through, eh?” 

“I suppose so,” replied Principal Jones. “Although 


THE GOVERNOR ELECT 


257 

some of it is the lick-spittle reaction that was to have been 
expected.” 

There were cheers outside The Lariat. Hugh moved 
slowly toward the door. The school man followed him 
with an anxious face. “Sure you feel up to speaking this 
evening, Hughie?” 

“Don’t worry about me, Principal,” replied Hugh, 
grimly, pausing with his hand on the door to look at his 
old friend. “I needed exactly this to restore me to full 
fighting trim.” Then he turned the lock and went out. 
And cheers, torchlights and beaming faces absorbed him. 

It was midnight when Miriam found him alone in The 
Lariat. He was standing at the rear window contemplat¬ 
ing the moonlight on the ice-laden river. She walked the 
length of the room and stood beside him, waiting. 

Hugh looked at her. She was wearing beaver furs. 
They made her beauty more pronounced than ever, her 
perfect grooming more noticeable, her ultra-sophistication 
more obvious. 

“Hughie,” she said, “let’s talk it all out.” 

“No,” replied Hugh. 

She drew a quick breath. “But, Hugh, you must not 
condemn me unheard. That’s not justice.” 

“Very well. Is it you who brought the Eastern Electric 
Corporation to Fort Sioux?” 

“Yes, but let me tell you what my motive was.” 

“I know what your motive was. Did you make Pink 
Morgan your partner?” 

“Not partner, Hughie. No! My tool.” Miriam smiled 
ruefully. 

“And did you force the sale of the Old Sioux Tract?” 

“No, Hughie! No! I had nothing to do with that.” 

Hugh gave her a keen look. The old faith was indeed 
corrupted. He did not believe her. 


258 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

She understood the look and her eyes filled with sudden 
fear. “Hughie! It was for your own good! Your own 
fulfillment! I did the rest, but truly I had no part in that 
sale. Things got out of hand. I came out here to stop it. 
But too late. And Jessie told me that you knew about her 
father and me. Johnny Parnell had told her. So I stayed 
on to explain to you. I knew that my presence could not 
stop the landslide for you.” 

Hugh, arms folded, jaw line prominent in the combined 
moonlight and lamp light, did not speak. Miriam laid her 
warm, delicate hand against his cheek. 

“Hugh!” 

The old thrill rose to her touch, but his mind refused 
to follow. He moved a little away from her. 

“Don’t you realize, Miriam, what you’ve done to me?” 

“I’ve made you governor of Wyoming,” she answered 
quickly. 

Hugh groaned. “But the cost, Miriam! The cost.” 

“The cost doesn’t matter,” she replied. “I’ve given you 
to the world. Who’s counting cost!” 

“I am,” said Hugh, grimly. “You were crooked with 
me, Miriam.” 

“No! Not that ugly word, Hughie! Please! You 
were like a little child that had to be developed by indirec¬ 
tion. Surely you understand that much, my dearest. O 
Hugh, don’t look so! Your face breaks my heart!” 

She threw her arms about him, laying her cheek to his. 
For a moment the sweetness of her had its way with him. 
He felt his body relax against hers. But instantly, as 
though it was a body belonging to some one else, he 
recalled it. And put her from him with a gesture that was 
none the less firm for its sadness. 

“You are not the woman to whom I gave my love,” 
he said. 


THE GOVERNOR ELECT 259 

She moved away from him, lifting her chin with hurt 
pride. 

“I have made my last advance, Hugh. You must make 
the next one yourself.” 

“You don’t see, Miriam, that it’s hopeless? That you’ve 
killed the thing I loved ? I suppose you don’t. Whatever 
in you made it possible for you to manipulate my life as 
you have, makes it impossible for you to understand what 
you’ve done to me. And I did love you, very, very much.” 

Miriam stared at him, consternation, unbelief, indigna¬ 
tion and finally tragic suspicion following one another in 
quick succession across her expressive face. 

“Hugh! Hugh! You wouldn’t, you couldn’t wreck 
our two lives for that! Why, think what I’ve done for 
you! You are governor of the state. You may become 
anything you will, now.” 

“But you were crooked with me,” insisted Hugh. 
“Those wonderful letters you wrote me. Marvels of 
duplicity. Your attitude toward my work, all the sym¬ 
pathy and quick perception. A crooked pose. And your 
often repeated request that no matter what came I’d believe 
in your love. Miriam, you’ve shattered me.” 

Her pride and dignity deserted her. “Hugh! Hugh! 
I did it because I love you so. I adore you. You know 
I do.” 

“You did it because you are ambitious and unscrupu¬ 
lous,” said Hugh, heavily. “Let’s end the scene, Miriam. 
I can’t stand much more. This past week has been hell.” 

“End the scene? But we can’t end it. You are mine, 
Hugh, mine!” 

The ultra-sophistication dropped from her like a cloak 
and it was the primal woman who hurled herself against 
Hugh, beating at his chest with her fists. 

“Mine!” she screamed. “No other woman’s. Mine! 


260 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Do you hear me, Hugh? HI never let you go. 111 live 
with you in that terrible dinosaur cave if need be. But 
I’ll never let you go.” 

Hugh clasped her fists in his long hands, his face pale, 
his lips stiff. “Listen to me!” he said, his low voice carry¬ 
ing above her hysteria. “Listen!” 

She had begun to sob terribly. 

“Listen to me, Miriam!” 

With a convulsive effort, she stilled her sobs and he 
went on. “You were in love with a man whom you could 
put and keep in a place of pomp and power. I’m not that 
man. I belong to the plains. And I shall return to them.” 

“I love you, you, you! Hugh Stewart. The man!” 
She burst forth. “And you belong to me. Always.” 

“Listen to me, Miriam. No woman can possess me who 
can't possess my soul as well as my body.” 

“You are mine, soul and body, as I am yours,” she 
sobbed. “I shall never let you go!” 

The sweat beaded Hugh's forehead. 

It was on this picture that Jessie opened the door. She 
came slowly down the room. Hugh looked up at her. 
Miriam went on sobbing. 

Jessie in her riding clothes, tall, ruddy, her presence 
breathing a curiously palpable self-control, stood for a 
long moment in the lamp glow before she spoke. 

“After all,” she said, finally, “I am your wife. As such, 
I’m the keeper of your reputation. I’ve kept hands off of 
everything else, as you asked me to. But unless you 
actually divorce me, I shall no longer tolerate Miss Page's 
presence in this clandestine kind of thing. You haven’t 
any private rights any more, Hughie. You belong to the 
state.” 

At Jessie’s first word, Miriam whirled about, tear- 


THE GOVERNOR ELECT 261 

stained face turned resentfully toward Jessie’s. Before 
Miriam could speak, Jessie raised her hand. 

“One moment! The situation is intolerable enough 
without adding a woman’s quarrel to it. I don’t know 
how much there is between you and Hughie, Miss Page. 
I do know that you are going to keep away from him now 
that he is governor. That is, until he divorces me.” 

“The crowd has left the hotel by now,” said Hugh, 
suddenly. “Let me take you over there, Miriam.” 

“Thank you, I prefer to go alone,” returned Miriam, 
dully. 

She drew her furs high around her throat and left The 
Lariat. Hugh opened and closed the door for her. Then 
leaned wearily against the counter, his eyes on Jessie. 

“I know that you’re very tired,” she said slowly. “I’ve 
not the least desire to start a scene at this hour of the night, 
Hughie. Only, as I said, I’m not able to endure the thing 
any longer. My patience is exhausted.” 

“I’m not particularly tired.” Hugh shrugged his 
shoulders. “That is, no more tired than I’ve been right 
along. Jessie, have you understood from the first what 
Miriam Page was doing with me?” 

Jessie’s long, strong fingers clenched on the back of the 
chair before her. Her blue eyes, those far-seeing, shad¬ 
owed, patient eyes, were violet now with some emotion 
Hugh made no attempt to fathom. 

“Hugh,” she said finally, “I’ve been enduring some 
punishment since Uncle Bookie’s death. Magpie and I— 
well, we’ve ridden a good many miles on these plains, 
taking our medicine as it was measured out to us. Magpie 
isn’t the half-trained bronco he was. He’s been spur- 
broken these last months. I’ve brought him in day after 
day with his flanks bloody. And God, He knows that the 
flanks of my soul have been bloody, too. I hate Miriam 


262 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Page. But Pm not wasting time on her. I’ve been finding 
out why Jessie Stewart has been a failure. And because 
I’ve been such a failure, I’ve nothing to say about Miriam 
Page. I’d been such a rotten wife, it was only a question 
of time anyhow when some woman would get in on my 
neglected preserves. I hate her so much that I’m afraid 
to let my mind dwell on her. You’ll never get another 
word out of me about her, Hughie.” 

“I’ve been taking punishment myself, Jessie.” 

“Yes, Hughie?” 

“I’m not the man you are coming to be, Jess. I’m an 
empty shell.” 

Jessie eyed him keenly. Hugh went on heavily: ”1 
know all of Miriam’s part in the Thumb Butte matter. 
That’s ended. I shall not see her again.” 

Jessie paled. Her eyes flashed with tears, but she did 
not speak. 

“No woman,” Hugh said slowly, “can ever get under 
my skin again. That’s done with, thank God. But,” with 
sudden fire, “they’ll never build the dam at Thumb Butte. 
Not while I’m governor of this state or after I’m returned 
to my work. Mark it, Jessie.” 

“I’ll mark it, Hughie. I’ll mark it all.” She turned the 
collar of her riding coat up around her ears. “If Miriam 
Page turns your enemy, she’ll stop at nothing. It’s very 
cold tonight. Good night, Governor!” 

“Good night, Jessie.” 

He opened and closed the door for her as he had for 
Miriam, then went to bed. 


CHAPTER XIV 

THE LAST FIGHT FOR THE CODE 

TVT IRIAM left Fort Sioux on an early morning train. 
^ A Whether or not she would take Hugh’s attitude as 
final, he did not even try to guess. 

The modeling hand of Fate had not yet finished with 
Hugh. Nature had made him of fine material, but 
streaked with dross. She makes many such and commonly 
the dross consumes the finer metal. But occasionally Fate 
decides that the pure material shall not be lost, and she 
sees to it that life anneals such an one as Hugh relentlessly, 
until, purged of extraneous matter, he faces the world, 
steel true, indeed, and blade straight. Fine in the best 
sense of the word a character must be that can emerge 
from this blast furnace of fate, pliant, yet fine; delicately 
and intricately wrought, yet enduring; steadfast; fixed in 
beauty. 

The morning after his return, Hugh’s first act was to 
make peace with Mrs. Ellis. 

“You are looking mighty fit for a successful campaign 
manager!” he exclaimed. 

“I ought to. I’ve lost thirty pounds of excess weight 
and I’ve slept for the past thirty-six hours. Your week’s 
rest didn’t do you much good, Hughie.” 

“Did I embarrass you by going away as I did?” he 
asked. 

“Nice time to be asking me that!” exclaimed Mrs. Ellis. 

“No, it was the best thing you could have done. If we’d 

263 


264 the exile of the lariat 

needed you, I’d have sent for you. Johnny Parnell knew 
where you were. Hughie, what are you going to do about 
the Old Sioux Tract?” 

“Who bought it in?” asked Hugh. 

“Nobody knows. Of course, they haven’t got the char¬ 
ter yet. And, of course, they won’t get it now.” Mrs. 
Ellis rubbed one plump hand slowly with the other, look¬ 
ing thoughtfully out the window at a small boy struggling 
with a very large mule. When the struggle had passed 
from her vision, she said, “Don’t you think it’s time you 
talked to me a little about the Children’s Code ? It’s not 
altogether this eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth manner of 
politics that makes me ask you. Many things are going 
to be put over between now and the time you take office. 
And this is the way it’s going to work. They know you’ll 
force the Code through. All that they can do in the next 
two months to extract the teeth from the Code they will 
do. Hughie, I’m almost in despair over it.” 

For the first time since he had known her, Mrs. Ellis’ 
voice broke weakly. He reached over to take her hands, 
and to say between set teeth, “I’ll fight for the Code 
as you fought for the Old Sioux Tract. As you’ve learned, 
I’m no politician. I can’t seem to scheme things. But 
whatever other ability I have is yours. Mrs. Ellis, I’d do 
anything for you. Do you realize that you’re the only 
person in the world, outside of Red Wolf and Fred, that 
has never tried to use me?” 

“Why, Hughie, how silly! I’m trying to use you right 
now.” 

“I don’t call this using me. You are too frank and 
honest about your plans. Tell me, what tooth will they 
try to extract first?” 

“I’m not sure. Let me check over in my mind.” 

Hugh lighted his pipe, his eyes intent on Mrs. Ellis’ 


LAST FIGHT FOR THE CODE 265 

face. She always showed a degree of emotion when the 
Children’s Code was under discussion that she showed at 
no other time. Just at this moment there were tears in 
her eyes. 

“My dear Mrs. Ellis,” he said softly, “I wish you’d tell 
me all about it. You know exactly why I am in the fight. 
You’ve never told me why the Code means to you what 
it does. I believe I could put more force in my blows if 
you took me into your inner confidence. I—I am very 
fond of you, Mrs. Ellis. And I need to feel that some one 
has confidence in me, right now.” 

The tear slipped down into the dimple that suddenly 
appeared in Mrs. Ellis’ plump cheek. 

“Hughie! You aren’t exactly down and out. Perhaps 
I’d better remind you that you’ve just been elected gov¬ 
ernor, and that no man has ever gone into office in this 
state with as enthusiastic a group of followers.” 

“But,” insisted Hugh, “that isn’t telling me what the 
Children’s Code really means to you.” 

“There’s nothing complicated about that,” said Mrs. 
Ellis, very soberly. “But it hurts me to talk about it. This 
is a pioneer state. Pioneering works unutterable hard¬ 
ships on women, because they are nature’s specialists. 
They have to bear the children. But Wyoming is a pio¬ 
neer state that has access to every resource of civilization. 
There has been no time in the past thirty years when 
Wyoming could not have given state aid to any prospective 
mother, no matter how remotely she might have hid her¬ 
self in the ranges. But her politicians would not have it 
so. Hughie, when I was a girl of twelve, I was alone on 
the ranch with my mother. We were too poor and too 
ignorant. She died in child birth—me, alone, a little girl, 
trying to help her, trying to save the baby, to save her. 
I failed. I never can forget it—never get over it—never 


266 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

forgive civilization that it can let such things, such un¬ 
necessary things, come to women and children.” 

Hugh, deeply moved, stared out the rear window at the 
immutable line of the canyon. He never had come in 
contact with the agonizing facts of birth. He had thought 
very little about them. But suddenly he found himself 
suffering with that little dimpled girl of twelve. Suddenly 
he saw women from a profoundly different angle. After 
a moment, he said, slowly: 

“Mrs. Ellis, will they attack first the establishment of 
the county maternity centers?” 

“What makes you ask that?” asked Mrs. Ellis, wiping 
her face and looking at him with the old battle fire in her 
eyes. 

“Big Elijah asked me last night to use influence to get 
the new state asylum for his county. And he mentioned 
that he thought the appropriation for that would be cut 
because he’d heard there was a bill being worked through 
giving millions to a medical school and model hospital at 
Cheyenne. They’d kept it very quiet, but it had reached 
his ears when they tried to get Mormon backing. Old 
Charley Whitson is the father of the bill.” 

“Exactly!” said Mrs. Ellis through set teeth. “He’ll 
never forgive me for helping you. So he’s going to ruin 
the Code for me.” 

“No, he’s not going to ruin the Code for you.” Hugh 
rose slowly. “He and the rest of those buzzards will find 
something else to feed on. Let’s send for Big Elijah and 
Mrs. Morgan.” 

He went to the telephone, and shortly the Mormon 
leader appeared. He took off his hat elaborately. 

“Good morning, Governor!” 

“ ‘Stewart’ is good enough, Nelson,” said Hugh, 
smiling. 


LAST FIGHT FOR THE CODE 267 

“As far as I’m concerned, you are the Governor,” 
replied Elijah. “Howdy, Mrs. Ellis.” 

“Howdy, Elijah. How are Mary and the boy?” 

“Well, young ’Lige hasn’t quite got on his feet, yet. His 
heart is bad after the diphtheria. Doc says he’ll outgrow 
it. Worries me. Doc Blackston is in Salt Lake this win¬ 
ter, and I’d like to have the boy within easy reach of a 
doctor. To say nothing of Mary. We hope there’ll be a 
baby at our home by Christmas. Do you think I can get 
her to go into Salt Lake or come up to Cheyenne, where 
she can get care? No! She won’t leave home.” 

Mrs. Ellis gave Hugh a quick look. He was scowling 
in a puzzled way. 

“That doesn’t exactly fit in with the psychology of what 
you were telling me, Mrs. Ellis,” he said. 

“Yes, it does,” she contradicted. “Nine women out of 
ten have a horror of being away from their homes and 
their husbands at such a time. Hence the Code idea of 
county centers, from which the doctors and nurses can go 
to the mothers.” 

Elijah looked up with interest. “Is that in the Code?” 

“Heavens, Elijah! You Mormons helped to kill my 
bill. Don’t tell me you didn’t even read it.” 

“No, I didn’t,” admitted the Mormon, belligerently. “A 
lot of newfangled notions to eat up the public funds. 
That’s what I thought it was. And I’m not sure now that 
it ain’t.” 

“And yet,” said Mrs. Ellis, “if the Code had been in 
force this fall, you’d have had a county hospital to have 
rushed your boy to and not have had to trust to the bravery 
and persistence of a man you didn’t trust.” 

“I trust him now,” grunted Elijah. “Well, what is the 
idea of this here Children’s Code?” 

“I won’t go into but the one section of it now,” said 


268 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Mrs. Ellis. And she explained to him rapidly that por¬ 
tion of the Code which was based on the thrifty and effi¬ 
cient plan of the German Red Cross, in times of peace. 

Elijah was much impressed. ‘‘Never heard of such an 
idea in all my life,” he said. “Probably wouldn’t cost as 
much as that big affair they’re planning to put over in 
Cheyenne.” 

Mrs. Ellis was exasperated. “Will you tell me,” she 
demanded, “how a supposedly intelligent man could close 
his ears to a thing that’s been discussed as long and as 
violently as this Code has?” 

“It didn’t bite close enough home, till now,” answered 
Elijah, grinning complacently. He winked at Hugh. 
“The Governor never read it either, I’ll bet. He’s no 
better than a bachelor.” 

“I didn’t read it till Mrs. Ellis made me,” confessed 
Hugh. 

“Dead bones being so much more important than live 
babies,” snorted Mrs. Ellis. “Well, Elijah, what are you 
going to do about it?” 

“You mean about Mary?” 

“Yes, Mary, indirectly. Directly, the Code.” Mrs. Ellis 
was sitting bolt upright now. “You must not think”— 
she was beginning, when Mrs. Morgan came in. She 
nodded to the others, then offered Hugh her hand with an 
air of deference no one before had seen her wear. 

“We are very proud of you, Hughie,” she said. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Morgan,” replied her son-in-law. 

“I’m honestly sorry about the Sioux Tract.” Mrs. 
Morgan glanced curiously at Elijah. “I suppose that is 
what you want to talk about.” 

“Not at the moment,” answered Hugh. “I only want 
to say that they’ll never build the dam at Thumb Butte if 
I have to dynamite every pound of concrete that’s poured 


LAST FIGHT FOR THE CODE 269 

in. Just now we are going to lay plans about the 
Children’s Code.” 

He asked Elijah to repeat his last night’s statement, to 
which Mrs. Morgan listened in her eager way. 

“Well,” she said, “it’s gone further than I thought it 
had. What we’ve got to do is to buy them off.” 

“Buy them!” laughed Elijah. “Woman, you are too 
ambitious! What would you buy them with? Stone 
birds?” 

Every one laughed with the Mormon. But Mrs. Mor¬ 
gan insisted when quiet was restored, “I mean what I say. 
There must be something in the control of the Federation 
of Women’s Clubs that the Whitson gang could use. I 
wonder what it is.” 

“The Whitson gang wants loot, nothing else,” ex¬ 
claimed Elijah. 

“Don’t be too sure of that,” said Mrs. Ellis. “They all 
are well-to-do men. Their price may not be in money.” 

“I suppose, as a matter of fact, each man’s price is 
different from every other’s,” suggested Hugh. “Which 
makes Mrs. Morgan’s proposition impossible.” 

“Not at all,” contradicted Mrs. Ellis. “For the second 
time in history I’m about to agree unequivocally with Mrs. 
Morgan. There probably is one single thing on which all 
their hearts are set. We’ve got to find out what that is.” 

“I can name one thing right now,” said Elijah. “Offer 
to put Hugh Stewart out of state politics and they’d give 
you the Children’s Code.” 

Every one laughed again. 

“Jokes aside,” said Mrs. Ellis suddenly. “Even if we 
wanted to do such an absurd thing, I doubt if we could 
do it. The ranchers of this state want him. The young 
men of education want him and the women want him. 


270 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

He belongs to Wyoming now and he can’t be shoved in 
and out of politics like a wax figure.” 

Hugh moved impatiently. “Let’s get down to business 
about this matter,” he suggested. And forthwith the im¬ 
promptu committee plunged into possible plans for trading 
with the enemy. Hugh, as he had said, was useless in the 
formation of political intrigues, so little was expected 
from him in the conference. But for once Mrs. Ellis and 
Mrs. Morgan had nothing feasible to suggest. After a 
fruitless hour, during which The Lariat was bombarded 
by impatient politicians and admirers, Elijah suggested 
that a recess be taken. 

“If I’ve got to help on the Children’s Code, which will 
take an awful lot of explaining down my way, you’ve got 
to let me get out and talk and think by myself. To tell 
the truth, I’m not used to conferring with women around.” 

Mrs. Ellis nodded and Elijah, like a boy freed from 
school, bolted. Johnny Parnell entered as the big Mormon 
went out, and demanded to know the purport of the 
conclave. 

Hugh explained. Johnny listened, smoking thought¬ 
fully, his spurred boots on the stove. 

“Sheep for cows,” he said finally. “Send for Jessie.” 

The other three stared at him and Johnny, his great 
voice carefully casual, his manner as indifferent as if he 
had not prayed for this moment for months, took his pipe 
from his mouth and said, “That whole Whitson gang has 
been working for three years buying in sheep lands down 
on the Colorado border east of the Roaring Chief. The 
Lord knows even I’ll admit a cow couldn’t live in the 
whole of the territory. Get the cowmen to move the sheep 
line ten miles nearer the river and they’ll give in on the 
Cheyenne Hospital.” 

“Johnny Parnell, you know as well as I do,” snapped 


LAST FIGHT FOR THE CODE 271 

Mrs. Ellis, “that a cowman would shoot you if you’d 
make such a suggestion.” 

“Sure he would,” boomed Johnny. “That’s why I said, 
send for Jessie. Let me give you folks a little bit of 
news. Mrs. Morgan, what’s Jessie been doing during this 
campaign?” 

“She’s been acting as your secretary and assistant up 
there at the ranch. And I’ve noticed that she’s very 
popular with the cowmen.” 

“Popular!” snorted Johnny. “Let me tell you that 
Jessie Morgan is the whole works in the association. 
Why, she has no real idea herself of the influence she 
has. She’s got her mother’s gift for politics with, excuse 
me, Mrs. Morgan, a kind of natural frankness and friend¬ 
liness that her mother hasn’t. More than that, she’s a real 
Wyoming girl. She knows horses, she knows cattle. 
She’s learned the problems the fellows that raise steers 
have, and she’s interested, heart and soul, in them. And 
on top of it all, there ain’t a man that’s met her up there 
that isn’t more than half in love with her. Tell Jessie to 
get that concession from the cowmen and she’ll get it.” 

The two women looked at Hugh. He was spared giving 
an immediate answer, for Johnny gave a sudden whoop. 

“There she goes now, on Magpie, back to the ranch!” 
He rushed to the door and roared, “Jessie! Jessie!” in 
tones that shook the walls of The Lariat. 

Jessie turned her horse, dismounted and came slowly 
into the book shop. She greeted them all with an inclu¬ 
sive nod. 

“Jessie,” exclaimed Johnny, “will you undertake to get 
our association to run the sheep dead-line ten miles nearer 
Roaring Chief, below Whitewater, in return for the Whit¬ 
son gang giving up the Cheyenne Hospital and School? 
Mrs. Ellis says that’s hurting her Children’s Code.” 


272 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Jessie knocked the snow from her coat with her heavy 
gauntlets and looked from Johnny to Hugh. 

‘Til do nothing active in this campaign unless Hughie 
asks me to,” she said, in her deliberate way. 

Mrs. Morgan started to speak. Mrs. Ellis laid her 
hand for an instant across her assistant’s lips, giving 
her at the same time a look that temporarily paralyzed 
Mrs. Morgan’s faculties for interference. Johnny rolled 
a cigarette. 

Hugh looked from Jessie to the walls of The Lariat, 
at the familiar bookbindings, at the Indian curios, at 
Bookie’s old silver spurs, carefully preserved on the top 
shelf. The Lariat! Here the loneliest and the sweetest 
hours of his life had been spent. 

After a moment he turned to look again at Jessie. She 
was watching the ice cakes on the river. Frankness and 
friendliness, Johnny had said. Yes, they were there, 
obvious even to his wearied gaze. But the old resentment 
welled up. There had been no friendliness in the days 
when she had laughed at him, been ashamed of him and 
his work. The old days! How long ago they seemed! 
And, after all, what a tiny part of his little span of life. 

And yet he could not bear the idea of taking help from 
Jessie. Then, for the first time, he asked himself honestly, 
why. And he answered himself honestly. Only half of 
his attitude was due to the old resentment. The other half 
was based on a furtive shame. How could he take this 
sort of assistance from his wife when there had been 
Miriam? Suddenly he shook himself with impatience. 
Jessie was generous. Couldn’t he at least be not ungen¬ 
erous? His face was pale with the stress of the struggle 
when he looked at his wife and said in a low voice: 

“It will be very kind of you to help us, Jessie.” 


LAST FIGHT FOR THE CODE 273 

Jessie turned to Mrs. Ellis. ‘‘You’ll have to give me 
more definite information,” she said. 

Hugh picked up his cap and mackinaw. “If you can 
go on without me, I’ll go out and look up Judge Proctor.” 

“The Judge went up to Cheyenne yesterday,” said 
Jessie. 

“There’ll be some one in his office I can talk to,” insisted 
Hugh. He nodded and went out. 

But there was no one in Judge Proctor’s office who 
could or perhaps would give him any information about 
the will. The whole office was cloaked in silence and 
mystery. Nor was Hugh given much time to pursue his 
investigations. He was carried off that noon to a dinner 
given by the cattlemen and miners, which lasted most of 
the afternoon. It was not merely a congratulatory affair. 
Hugh’s election, meaning in most ways so little to him, 
was a matter of great and growing portent to these men 
who made their living literally from the soil of Wyoming. 

It was the first time that a man of Hugh’s mental type 
had been placed in high office in the state. Only half 
convinced as to his fitness at first, they had grown at last 
to feel a fanatical sort of faith in him. A faith that was 
fed not a little by the fact that in spite of his simplicity 
and frankness, the actual workings of his mind were a 
mystery to them. They felt that because of his education 
and his peculiar profession and because of his avowed 
motive for coming into politics that he was a man above 
the common run of men. 

The men at this dinner loved Wyoming. They sincerely 
desired her best welfare. And they felt that a great 
moment had arrived for the state; that with Hugh’s elec¬ 
tion they had inaugurated a new era. An era of some¬ 
thing higher, nobler, more far-seeing than they had known 
before. And the important aspect of this dinner for Hugh 


274 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

was that for the first time he realized this fact. The 
realization came as he listened to the closing words of a 
speech by the toastmaster. 

“Some day,” he said, “we are going to educate our 
children so they’ll be fit for public service. Not only that! 
We’ll educate them so that they’ll feel obligated to give 
some kind of public service during their lives, it doesn’t 
matter how lowly or how high that service is. And so 
that they’ll give that service without desiring or demand¬ 
ing a personal reward. A year ago I’d have said that kind 
of an education and that kind of a result was impossible. 
I didn’t know the Hon. Hugh Stewart then! 

“Yes, I know you all might say he was out frankly 
for a mighty concrete reward. The Old Sioux Tract! 
Gentlemen, he wanted that tract for the state of Wyo¬ 
ming. He had not a personal desire in connection with 
it. Instead, he sacrificed every personal desire he pos¬ 
sessed to make the fight to save that strange graveyard to 
future generations. 

“I offer you, gentlemen, the name of our next governor. 
The new kind of American. The American who gives 
political service at the sacrifice of self.” 

Hugh was too much moved by this speech and by the 
tumultuous applause that followed to reply. But his 
emotion was not that of gratified vanity. He was twisted 
by a deep-seated sense of shame. 

It was this sense of being ungenerous that caused him 
to set his jaw and promise himself that even his anger and 
anxiety over the fate of the Sioux Tract should not pre¬ 
vent his doing his utmost for Mrs. Ellis and the Children’s 
Code. 


CHAPTER XV 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 

r I NHERE was something extraordinarily baffling about 
the reported sale of Hugh’s property. Principal 
Jones undertook to run down the facts. But Judge Proc¬ 
tor was gone on a vague trip east. Charles Grafton 
insisted that he knew nothing of the sale. No deeds had 
been recorded. There was no move on the part of the 
Eastern Electric Corporation to begin any sort of building 
operations. Yet the rumor of the sale persisted. Finally 
a mysterious note reached Hugh from the Judge in Bos¬ 
ton, saying that he had been obliged to take action on the 
property under the terms of Bookie’s will, and that when 
the negotiations with the Boston Public Library were 
completed, he could confer with Hugh personally. It was 
maddening, but Hugh was obliged to be content with this 
meager information. 

He had more than half expected and much dreaded 
to receive a letter from Miriam, but no letter arrived. 
Johnny told Hugh that he had heard that Miriam was to 
be in the west for some time on business, and Hugh, when¬ 
ever a slender woman’s figure flashed unexpectedly across 
his vision, would catch his breath, wondering if there was 
now to be a renewal of the battle which Miriam had 
irrevocably lost. 

The days rushed madly on, Hugh becoming more and 
more involved in the details of party program. He was 
deep in conference with Mrs. Ellis in The Lariat when 

275 


276 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

the first word he had received about Miriam arrived. It 
was in the shape of a telegram from a hospital in Salt 
Lake City. 

‘‘Miss Miriam Page ill at this address. Pneumonia. 
She cannot live through another day. Come at once.” 

Hugh read the message through twice, then laid it on 
the counter and stared at Mrs. Ellis. A sense of irrepara¬ 
ble loss shook him. It was only now, long after the week 
spent over his fossils in severing his life from Miriam’s, 
that the actual realization of what that loss meant came 
to him. 

“I must go to Salt Lake City,” he said abruptly. ‘‘I 
must start now.” 

“What is the trouble?” exclaimed Mrs. Ellis. 

“A personal matter,” replied Hugh. “I’ve missed the 
Limited. Marten must take me in the Dinosaur.” 

“But, Hughie!” protested his manager. “If it’s as 
important as that, you ought to tell me what it is.” 

“I can’t tell you! You must make my excuses. I’ll be 
back as soon as possible.” 

“A very risky trip to take in the airplane in such weather 
as this. I know it’s clear, but too frightfully cold, and if 
you have to come down for any reason-!” 

“None the less,” insisted Hugh, pale-lipped, “I must 
go.” He started to his feet. 

Johnny Parnell, striding in, put his hand on Hugh’s 
shoulder. “Hold on, Governor!” he said. “I want to tell 
you something. Did you get a telegram just now from 
Salt Lake?” 

“Yes,” replied Hugh. “I’ve got to leave for there at 
once. By the Dinosaur.” 

“Governor,” said Johnny, with the note of deference 
he now always gave his old friend, “I heard that you’d 
got that telegram. I heard from Billy Chamberlain, who 



CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


2 77 

knows Morse and was in the ticket office when the message 
came.” 

Hugh drew himself up. “Because I have no privacy,” 
he exclaimed, “my friends should not feel warranted in 
intruding on me.” 

“The point is, Governor,” Johnny was red with earnest¬ 
ness, “that you haven’t any personal affairs any more. 
And I’ve got to intrude because it ain’t intruding. Hughie, 
you mustn’t go to her.” 

“I am leaving for Salt Lake as soon as Marten can get 
the plane tuned up. Don’t interfere with me, Parnell,” 
said Hugh. 

“I’ve got to,” insisted Johnny miserably. “Even if 
she’s dying, you must not go. Lord, I wonder what she 
was doing in Salt Lake anyhow!” 

“Coming up here to make mischief, of course!” ex¬ 
claimed Mrs. Ellis, suddenly putting two and two 
together. “The Christmas Eve celebration tonight, too! 
Hugh Stewart, you cannot go. You cannot enter office 
with this last episode attached to your name.” 

Hugh turned to the coat hooks on the wall and pulled 
himself rapidly into his heavy airman’s outfit, his two 
friends staring impotently. When he was dressed he 
looked at them with a splendid sort of defiance. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, and went out. 

He helped Marten groom the Dinosaur for the trip. 
Marten, knowing of the telegram, asked no questions, but 
worked with disapproval in every line of his face. Before 
the usual crowd that dogged Hugh and the airplane could 
gather, they were off. 

Brilliant blue of sky. Iridescent white of plains. Bit¬ 
ter cold of air. Hours of ear-shattering throbbing of the 
engine. Hugh made no attempt at consecutive thought. 
He was weary of that. He gave himself over to grief. 


278 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Not the grief that bowed him at his Uncle Bookie’s 
death. Not the grief that, commingled with anger and 
chagrin, had made his week with Jimmie’s dinosaur a 
week of torment. It was the pain of a man over the death 
of a woman whose beauty of mind and body he has loved. 
Eyes dry and bright, teeth set hard, fists clenched within 
his fur mittens, he sat silent until sunset they sighted the 
fuel station which marked the end of the first third of 
their journey. It was a lonely spot, set deep in sheep 
country, supplied by an oil tank that worked its way up 
on the rough trails used by the sheep herders. 

The Dinosaur descended to reload with gasoline. They 
were in a wide valley, surrounded by snow-covered peaks. 
But there was no snow in the valley. There were great 
reaches of orange sand, thick set with gray green sage 
brush, reaches that were cut by draws and little hills, little 
rounded hills, studded with the tiny log fuel station, a 
sheep wagon crowned the highest hillock, black against the 
sinking sun. Black, too, against the evening glory was a 
gently moving, faintly tinkling ocean of sheep; thousands 
upon thousands of them, following their shepherd, an 
equestrian in bronze. 

When Marten had stopped his engine before the oil tank 
he said to Hugh in a tone that was as nearly surly as he 
ever had used to the Gray Stallion: 

“You have to give me half an hour to get after that 
cylinder that’s been missing the last few miles.’’ 

Hugh nodded, removed his goggles and stood staring 
up the valley at the slow-moving flocks. Christmas Eve! 
How like a Tissot the sheep, the little hills, the twisted 
cedars. Hugh’s mind deserted Miriam’s death agony for 
a moment and went back to his mother, his tall, gray-eyed 
mother and the Christmas* star. The star of Bethlehem, 
under which she always told him the matchless tale of the 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 279 

Babe in the Manger. The door of memory moved wide. 
The unspeakable fragrance of these nights with his mother 
touched his tortured mind. Again he felt the nearness to 
a great glory and that great world tragedy—felt his 
mother’s passionate love for him and his for her—how 
different, how very different, from this later love—felt 
again his mother’s overwhelming desire for him to achieve 
something as stupendous as that other mother had desired 
for that other and deeply tragic child. Suddenly Hugh 
bowed his head and groaned aloud. How he had wasted 
himself—Jessie—Miriam. And why? What was the 
keystone to his failure? 

Hugh did not know. 

The valley was in purple dusk. The west sky above the 
snowy peaks showed only in faintest orange, but the east 
was glorious in reflected crimson that shot in fiery spokes 
to the very zenith. A light like a huge silver Chinese 
lantern glowed from the highest hillock. It must be 
supper time within the canvas-covered sheep wagon. 

Marten tinkered steadily at the recalcitrant cylinder. 
Hugh tramped impatiently back and forth. 

The glow in the east faded into purple. A star pricked 
forth, huge, lambent. There was the sudden sound of a 
galloping horse and the shepherd appeared within the glow 
of Marten’s lantern. He was a young fellow in blue over¬ 
alls. His tanned face in the flickering light was stark 
with fear. 

“Say, strangers!” he panted. “When I went home to 
supper just now, I found my wife sick. Looks like the 
baby was going to be here a month "ahead of time. It’s 
awful! She’s going through hell up there. She’ll die if 
we don’t get a doctor. Does—does either of you folks 
know anything about birthing a baby?”* 

“No!” replied Hugh and Marten together. 


280 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 


“God!” cried the sheep herder. “How long would it 
take you to go up to Fort Sioux for the doctor in that 
thing?” 

“Six hours for the round trip,” replied Marten. 

The sheep herder clutched his hair. “She’ll be dead 
by then.” 

Marten said suddenly, “This here is Hon. Hugh Stew¬ 
art, the new governor of Wyoming. He’s on his way to 
the bedside of a—a friend that’s dying.” 

The man’s jaw dropped. He stared at Hugh, pulled 
off his cap and replaced it, then gasped, “How should I 
know! But I can’t help it, if it was the king of Eng¬ 
land”—with a quick sob, “it’s my wife and she’s in labor. 
I’ve got to have help!” 

It was only a moment that Hugh stood silent. But in 
that moment his whole lifetime of habit in thought fought 
with the new Hugh agonizing in fate’s crucible. 

Miriam dying, leaving behind her nothing but Hugh’s 
aching heart. The sheep herder’s wife, ignorant and 
coarse in all probability, but fighting to perform the 
woman’s racial task. 

“Is your engine in shape, Marten?” asked Hugh finally. 

“Good enough!” 

“I’ll go back for Doc Olson,” said Hugh, buttoning 
his tunic. 

Marten moistened his lips and his voice was husky as 
he said, “No you won’t, old timer! Excuse me, I mean 
Governor. That engine is on the bum and you can’t 
handle it. I’ll go.” 

Hugh nodded. “Get going, then, Marten.” 

“You mean,” gasped the sheep herder, “that you—you 
are going to put off your trip for my wife?” 

“You’d better get back to her,” said Hugh. “I’ll follow 
you as fast as I can.” 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


281 


He helped Marten to refill the tank, stood for a moment 
watching the Dinosaur’s great wings dwindle into the 
gleaming Christmas heavens, then he started rapidly 
toward the silver light of the sheep wagon. 

Hugh opened the door of the sheep wagon. The sheep 
herder was bending over the bench at the opposite end. 

“Georgie! Georgie! Help me!” his wife sobbed. 

4 ‘What shall I do, Dora? What can I do!” 

There was only a scream of agony from Dora. Hugh, 
trembling, lips set, stuffed some wood into the stove, saw 
that the supply was low and would have gone out to forage 
for more had not George turned his head and said to him, 
hoarsely: 

“Wring another hot towel out of that water. She won’t 
let go my hands.” 

There was a dish-pan simmering on the stove. Hugh 
seized a steaming towel and wrung it, then crossed with 
it to the bed. 

“Now bring in an armload of wood from under the 
wagon before she needs another,” said George. 

Hugh leaped to the task, then twisted out another 
scalding cloth. Dora writhed and groaned. George, hold¬ 
ing her hands, soothed her steadily. Far out a coyote 
pack howled and the shepherd dog replied from near the 
wagon. The little stove glowed red. Hugh moved steadily 
between the simmering dish-pan and the bed. 

It was a losing fight. If Dora knew, as she probably 
did not, what might have been done to help her, she was 
in an agony that precluded giving coherent directions. 
And, anyhow, it is not a part of our extraordinary system 
of education that women shall know what to do in the 
great and inevitable emergency. George, in his life spent 
among herds, might have helped had he not been rendered 
useless by love and terror. The two men, sweating in 


282 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

sympathy and fear, struggled impotently, however, to 
relieve her pain. About two hours after the Dinosaur had 
left, the baby was born. They rolled it in a blanket, laid 
it at the foot of the bed, and gave all their attention to 
Dora. But she was beyond their help. 

She seemed, now that her face was not distorted, very 
young to Hugh. Her eyes were very blue. She looked 
up at George with a smile unutterably sweet, then her lids 
fluttered down. She never lifted them again. George, his 
face buried in the pillow, his cheek against Dora’s, did not 
stir. Hugh stood rigid beside the stove until a sudden 
sense of chill bade him start the fire again. Then he 
looked hesitatingly from the little bundle at the silent 
mother’s feet to George’s motionless form. He could not 
bear to disturb the man. He lifted the baby, bent his 
head over the tiny lips, felt a flutter of breath against his 
cheek, and with a thrill such as he never before had experi¬ 
enced, he sat down by the fire and held the child in its 
warmth. 

For a little time there was utter silence within. With¬ 
out, the nameless sounds of the great flocks and the 
menacing call of the coyotes. The baby was very still. 
But some stirring instinct told Hugh that if he could keep 
it warm it would live until the doctor arrived. There 
must be more wood chopped. He looked toward the bed. 

“George!” he said, softly. “George, old man!” 

The sheep herder raised his haggard face. 

“George, come over here and keep the baby warm while 
I chop more wood.” 

“Put it down on the bench,” said George, dully, turning 
back to Dora. 

“No, George! It needs to be held close to the heat. 
Come, old timer! We’ll put it through, won’t we? It’s 
her own flesh and blood we’ve got to save.” 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 283 

George rose stiffly and held out his arms for the child. 
Hugh pulled the blanket gently over Dora’s face, then 
slipped out to the cedar logs behind the wagon. He stood 
for a niQ|nent looking up at the Christmas star. His 
mother. Miriam. Jessie. God! What was life? Why 
was it ? Whither did it tend ? What was the reason for 
that pitiful and unnecessary sacrifice within the sheep 
wagon? Suddenly he saw a dimpled child of twelve fight¬ 
ing for her mother’s life, as he and George had fought 
for Dora’s. A child of twelve witnessing in her mother 
the agony that had shaken him to the depths of his being. 
He slowly ground his teeth in the starlight and turned to 
the homely task at hand. 

When he re-entered the wagon, George was again beside 
the bunk, the baby lying on the bench. Hugh replenished 
the fire and lifted the bundle tenderly to his breast. Mrs. 
Ellis had lost, poor little girl. He, by the eternal, would 
save this baby, if his unskilled hands could do it. 

It was midnight when the first faint sound of the 
Dinosaur’s engine cut through the night. It seemed to 
Hugh a long, long time after that, that the door of the 
sheep wagon was jerked open and the familiar face of 
Doc Olson appeared against the night. A glance at the 
bed sufficed and the doctor turned his attention to the baby, 
Hugh watched him anxiously. The doctor’s ruddy face 
was very tender as he made his examination. 

“Poor little girl!” he murmured. “Poor little girl! 
Hold the light steady, Governor. You kept her warm. 
That was right. Poor little girl. What’s the young 
chap’s name? George?” He turned to the sheep herder, 
still engrossed in his grief. “George, where is the baby’s 
clothing?” 

George pulled a basket from under the bunk and gave 
it to Hugh. With what seemed to Hugh marvelous dex- 


284 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

terity, the doctor annointed the baby and wrapped it in 
roll after roll of little knit blankets which he ordered 
Hugh to extract from the basket. 

“Now, George/’ he said, placing the baby in Hugh’s 
arms while he repacked his case, “have you a sheepskin or 
two, tanned down good and soft? That’s right. Here 
you are, Hughie, roll the baby in there. I think she’ll 
make the trip.” 

“What are you going to do?” asked George, suddenly. 

“Take the baby up to Fort Sioux, where she can be 
cared for,” replied the doctor. “She hasn’t even a fighting 
chance here. I think I can save her, up there.” 

George looked at him, his face working. “I’ve gotta 
stay here, with Dora—and the sheep. I can’t seem to 
start thanking you folks. ’Specially the Governor, I- 

“It’s all right, old timer!” interrupted Hugh. “My one 
regret is that I was of no use.” 

Marten at this moment put his head cautiously in at the 
door. “Come in, Marten,” said the doctor. “Here’s a 
little Christmas baby for us to take back up to Fort 
Sioux.” 

Marten looked at the bench and removed his helmet. 
Hugh cleared his throat. “Marten,” he said, “did you get 
that cylinder fixed?” 

“Yes, Governor.” 

“Then I guess I’ll drive the plane back to Fort Sioux 
and leave you here with George for a couple of days. 
I can send back for you by Carl Brown. I’ll wire up to 
Cheyenne for him.” 

“You don’t need to do that,” said George. “If Marten 
will stick by a day or so, Big Elijah was coming through 
here to take—her—up to Fort Sioux.” 

“Fine! That’s all right, Governor,” said Marten. 
“Here, I’ll feed the crowd, before you make the start.” 



CHRISTMAS AGAIN 285 

“Make it quick,” ordered the doctor. “Minutes count 
with this little bundle.” 

He turned to take the baby from Hugh. But Hugh 
shook his head. “Hands off, Doctor! This is my charge,” 
and he settled himself on the bench, his face bent thought¬ 
fully above the quiet little burden in his arms. 

It was barely breakfast time when the Dinosaur rolled 
quietly across the field to the hangar below Fort Sioux. 
Hugh and the doctor alighted and tramped wearily up the 
trail toward the hotel. But Hugh was not to make his 
return thus quietly. Marten, on his hasty errand the night 
before, had found time to tell Mrs. Morgan of Hugh’s 
whereabouts. Scarcely had the Gray Stallion, still with 
the baby held jealously in his tired arms, put foot on the 
lowest step of the Massacre’s snow-banked porch, when a 
crowd burst from the hotel, from the barber shop, from 
anywhere and nowhere. There was the bare beginning of 
a cheer, quickly broken as the portent of the lonely little 
sheepskin bundle in Hugh’s arm broke upon the crowd. 

Then somebody said in a hushed voice, “Did the mother 
die, Governor?” 

“Yes,” replied Hugh simply, “but Doc Olson thinks we 
can pull the baby through. It’s a little girl.” 

A quick murmur rose. Hugh shook his head. “Wait 
a moment, friends. Let’s not make capital of this.” He 
hesitated, looking for a long moment from one familiar, 
understanding face to another. “We can’t make capital 
of it,” he repeated, brokenly. “The cost was too great.” 
He went on mounting the steps in a silence that was 
poignantly sympathetic. 

He slept until midafternoon. It was Johnny Parnell 
who wakened him. 

“This telegram just came for you, Governor. I thought 
you’d better have it as quick as you could.” 


286 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Hugh sat up in bed, staring from the unopened tele¬ 
gram to Johnny’s troubled eyes. 

“It’s that then, is it, Johnny?” Hugh looked appeal¬ 
ingly at his old friend. 

“Yes, Hughie. Miriam Page died this morning.” 

Plugh twisted his brown hands together and there was 
a long silence. Hugh gazed at the unopened message as 
though he would imprint forever on his mind its shape 
and color. Johnny did not stir. At last Hugh looked up 
at him. 

“The inscrutability of it, Johnny. The wastage.” 

“It isn’t wastage,” said Johnny, sturdily. “That baby 
ain’t waste, and, by Jupiter, the place last night’s work 
gave you in folks’ hearts ain’t waste.” 

Hugh moved impatiently. Then he forgot Johnny as 
Miriam’s loveliness flashed before his inward vision. But 
even as the vision came, it was replaced by the look of 
unutterable sweetness with which Dora had finished her 
task. He spoke with sudden determination : 

“I must get up, Johnny. Do you suppose you could 
rustle a tray of breakfast over here for me, while I shave?” 

“Td get you the earth on a tray if you wanted it!” 
exclaimed Johnny, striding out of The Lariat. 

It was Jessie who brought the breakfast in. She was 
quite casual about it, nodding at Hugh as she placed the 
tray on his desk near the stove. Hugh knotted his tie and 
sat down in silence. Not until he had finished did Jessie 
attempt to speak. Then she said, still casually: 

“Hughie, when did you plan to go after Judge Proc¬ 
tor?” 

“I’ve been trying right along to get an interview with 
him,” replied Hugh. “There is something strange about 
the whole thing. I can get no details from any one. I 
wouldn’t have believed it possible that any of that crowd 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


287 

could have reached the Judge. Why, he was one of Uncle 
Bookie’s best friends! He knew how Uncle Bookie felt 
about the Old Sioux Tract. It was a sacred place to him.” 

Jessie was suddenly very white and uneasy. Her deep 
eyes glowed with anxiety as she rose and, standing before 
Hugh, said, “Hughie, that other crowd didn’t reach the 
Judge. I did.” 

“You!” exclaimed Hugh. 

Jessie nodded. “We all knew that they were trying to 
force the sale on the plea of your week spent working on 
Jimmie’s dinosaur. I thought two could work that game, 
so I went to him and we hatched a scheme based on the 
fact that you’d broken the literal terms of the will when 
you started to give all your time to politics. I don’t know 
how the old Judge worked up the legal end of it. But any¬ 
how, a group of the cattlemen bid in the Dude Ranch. 
And you remember that legacy of mine? I bid in the Old 
Sioux Tract. You can have ’em both any way or time you 
want to arrange for them.” 

Hugh stood staring at Jessie in utter amazement. 
“Jessie! Jessie! I can’t! I don’t deserve it!” 

Jessie walked slowly to the rear window. Straight and 
strong and very fine was her silhouette against the winter 
sky. Slowly she walked back again to Hugh. 

“Hughie, I never have known what you really think 
about things. Before Bookie’s death I couldn’t even 
guess. But now, somehow, I understand without being 
told. And I believe that you do deserve it.” 

“I don’t, Jessie! I don’t!” cried Hugh. “You must 
not! Jessie, you break me with your generosity.” 

Jessie smiled at him wistfully, lifted the tray and walked 
slowly to the door. There she paused, to say slowly, 
“Hugh, I don’t think it’s generosity. It’s just—it’s just 


288 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 


my—it’s just that I am, as I warned you, a great lover.” 
Then she went out. 

Her exit was the signal for half a dozen impatient poli¬ 
ticians to enter, and for the rest of the day Hugh was 
swamped with work. 

Jessie had not found the swap suggested by Johnny 
Parnell, cows for sheep, an easy matter to arrange. In 
spite of their frank recognition of the debt the party owed 
to Mrs. Ellis, it was perhaps almost too much to ask of a 
cowman that he consider a ten-mile shift of the sheep 
dead-line as paid for by the preservation of the maternity 
center section of the Children’s Code. At least, no one 
but Jessie Morgan would have had even a gambling chance 
to swing the deal. But Jessie should have had six months 
instead of six weeks to handle the matter. And the last 
week of December found the legislature working fever¬ 
ishly to pass the Hospital Bill under cover of an 
unshakable filibuster. Mrs. Ellis, fighting desperately and 
gamely, had begun to break a little under the strain. And 
Hugh had resolutely thrust thought of the Sioux Tract 
from his mind in a final endeavor to help this woman who 
was so rare a friend not only to himself but, he had grown 
to realize, to Wyoming. 

But though he spent the remainder of Christmas day 
in strenuous conference with one group after another, no 
feasible plan was brought forward that might save this 
most vital clause of the Code. 

Hugh spent a restless night and woke in the morning 
with a sense of confusion and anxiety. It seemed to him 
that somehow he must have a few hours to himself. That 
if he could be alone on the plains for even a short time, 
he would be able to come to a decision which he felt dimly 
and uneasily was forming within him. He was conscious 
that somehow, out of the chaos and pain of the past two 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


289 

years, a trail was beginning to emerge which he might 
have the strength to follow. And he was despairingly 
eager to be on his way. 

Mrs. Ellis came in while he was finishing his breakfast 
and he tried haltingly to explain something of this to her. 
She leaned back in her chair wearily. 

‘‘You mean that you have a plan you think will work?” 
she asked. 

Hugh shook his head. “No, I haven’t, Mrs. Ellis. 
But I have an insane desire to mount Fossil and go up 
to the Dinosaur Cave or to some other spot where I have 
worked. I feel as if, there, this disorder in my brain 
misfht fall into the old order. I used to be—I—to tell the 
truth, I’m all broken up!” 

Mrs. Ellis nodded: “I know. She was extraordinarily 
lovely to look at!” 

Hugh stirred restlessly. 

“I suppose,” Mrs. Ellis went on, a little wistfully, “that 
you think I’ve been very hard about Miriam Page?” 

“Yes, Mrs. Ellis, I do,” replied Hugh, frankly. 

“Do you mind talking about it a little?” asked Mrs. 

Ellis. 

“Pm aching to talk with some one who won’t sit in 
judgment,” Hugh sighed as he spoke. 

“My dear, you sat in judgment, didn’t you, when you 
found out what Miriam had done?” 

“What I did was with regard to her personal deception 
of me. You condemned her love for me. I think love, 
such as I thought hers was for me, is its own justifica¬ 
tion.” 

“Hughie,” said the mother of the Code, “when you are 
as white-headed as I am, you’ll find that love based on 
selfishness always comes a cropper. Jessie s did. Yours 
did. Miriam’s did. Mine did.” 


290 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Yours?” asked Hugh. 

“Yes, mine. Me. But never mind that. I learned my 
lesson. As I fear you have not learned yours.” 

“Mrs. Ellis, I think Eve learned it.” 

The white-haired woman looked at him thoughtfully. 
Hugh’s face indeed had changed. Subtly, yet none the 
less the change was there. His mouth was kinder. The 
lines about his eyes and lips were softer. 

“I’ve learned it,” repeated Hugh. “I’ve learned that 
truly as Miriam and I believed we had found the great 
passion, we had not. Neither of us was willing to sacrifice 
our real desires and ambitions to the other. But that is 
not saying that I did not love her, Mrs. Ellis. Perhaps 
I’m not capable of the greater thing. I can’t bear the 
thought of her death. I see her in her beauty every¬ 
where, no matter what I am doing.” His voice died away 
huskily. 

“I know, Hughie, I know.” Mrs. Ellis nodded and 
they were silent until she said: 

“Hugh, some day when you and Jessie have been suffi¬ 
ciently purged, you are going to return to each other. 
Out of all this agony you two are going to rear on the 
coals of that flaming physical passion you had for each 
other in your youth a very great and wonderful love. I’m 
not doubting the sincerity of your feeling for Miriam 
Page when I say this, either.” 

Hugh looked out the window for a long moment before 
he said, “I wonder if all men fail their friends as I seem 
to have failed mine.” 

“You’ve not failed anybody, Hughie. The people of 
greater promise have greater demands made on them, 
that’s all. I think we’ve all been selfish in what we’ve 
expected of you. But we shall all keep right on expect¬ 
ing! That’s life.” 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 291 

'There’s something worse than not coming up to the 
expectations of your friends,” said Hugh. “A recognition 
of your own inner failure.” 

Mrs. Ellis rose and slowly crossed to Hugh’s side. She 
looked down into his tired eyes, then smoothed the hair 
back from his forehead and kissed him. 

“If your mother were living,” she said, "she’d gather 
you to her heart and comfort you as no other woman can. 
My dear, go mount Fossil, sweat your way up to the cave 
and then come back and tell me what you find there.” 

Hugh lifted her plump hand to his cheek, rested against 
it for a moment, then went to prepare for the ride. 

It was, of course, as he knew it would be, an exceed¬ 
ingly heavy trip up to the cave. And he was glad that this 
was so. Fossil broke trail willingly enough along the 
river edge as long as they were on the fiats. But when 
the canyon walls began to hem them in, gradually crowd¬ 
ing them closer and closer to the raging, ice-caked current, 
he began to struggle to turn homeward. But Hugh forced 
him on to within a mile of the cave, where the trail began 
to lift. Here, under the shelter of a wide ledge, he left 
the horse and went on afoot. 

To the right rose the scarred yellow canyon wall, picked 
out in clean-cut black and white by drift of snow. Below 
and to the left, first the river, dull greenish black, with 
churning ice-cakes flashing multi-colored like mighty 
opals. Beyond the river, the canyon wall again, purple, 
orange, ivory. Just before he reached the cave, Hugh 
paused to gaze at a green promontory that pushed abruptly 
into the river opposite. Even in winter there was below 
and a little behind it a quiet pool, in which a boat might 
rest. 

Arms folded, Flugh gazed at the pool, seeing it not in 
a winter setting but as it had been on that summer’s day 


292 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

when he and Miriam had rested for a perfect hour on its 
placid bosom. 

After a time he clambered on, heavily, and jerking open 
the door, entered the cave. 

He built a fire, ate his lunch; it was long past noon; 
and then, seated on a box close to the flames, he began his 
vigil. Hugh was not indulging in a tragic moment. He 
was not burying his dead. He was deliberately seeking 
to swing into the rhythm which he had lost, which, he 
told himself bitterly, he probably never had had. He 
was beginning with Bookie and his mother and working 
deliberately down through his life, examining himself for 
the first time with a merciless eye. 

It was a long process. But his thought in coming to 
this spot where he had worked had been sound. His mind 
did begin to function in the old, calm, orderly manner. 
And when his panorama had been set in sequence and 
began to move cleanly and clearly across his vision, he was 
able to gaze upon it as the man from Mars. He saw the 
little boy Hugh, lugging broken bits of fossil turtle shell 
home to his mother. He saw the adolescent Hugh, riding 
herd for Bookie, with a little bag of fossil fragments 
hanging from the pommel of the saddle. He saw Hugh 
at college, concentrating on geology to the exclusion of 
sports and friendships. He saw Hugh mad with first 
love; love of Jessie. And he saw Hugh turn from love 
and from Jessie when she scorned his fossils. He saw 
Bookie endeavoring by every tactful method he could 
evolve, to force Hugh to see himself and his capacities in 
other lights than that of paleontology. He checked over 
his attitude toward Pink, Mrs. Morgan, Jessie, Miriam, 
Mrs. Ellis, and he saw that he never had judged of them 
save as they interfered or did not interfere with his chosen 
work. 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


293 

Again and again he ran the panorama through, pausing 
over certain sections to analyze motives, until he had satis¬ 
fied himself that once and for all he understood the man 
Hugh. And it was with a sudden and overwhelmingly 
thrilling sense of shame and of gladness that he realized 
that at last he had envisaged the truth about himself. Life 
holds no more final satisfaction than this for any man. 

His had been the selfishness of the unsocial nature. 
Selfishness. Unsociality. Lack of herd instinct—that 
had wiped out the mighty creatures whose fossil remains 
he had worshiped. Fang against fang, claw against claw, 
the Creator had permitted the experiment to go on to its 
own extermination. Fang against fang, claw against 
claw, the human experiment too was speeding on its way. 
Nor would the Creator raise a finger to alter its course. 
For with the fang and the claw, He had given to humanity 
the capacity for thought. It was within man’s own power 
to work toward extermination or toward a perfection that 
dazzled Hugh’s fine imagination to contemplate. 

The fire had burned out. Hugh rose and went slowly 
from the cave, pausing without the opening to gaze on the 
unspeakable beauty of the moonlit night. Thumb Butte, 
thrusting its straight, fine height toward the heavens, 
glowed pale green against the black wall of the canyon. 

Hugh drew a great breath. Not of sadness. It was a 
breath of exultation. At last he had caught the rhythm! 
He made his way back to Fossil like a man wakened from 
a long nightmare. 


CHAPTER XVI 


JESSIE 

A S Hugh’s horse trotted swiftly across the bridge, 
he was met by Fred Allward. Fred, even by 
starlight, gave the impression of laboring under great 
excitement. He pushed his horse up to jog along beside 
Fossil. 

“Evening, Governor! I thought this was the only way 
to catch you alone. Look here, Hughie; Red Wolf is 
kind of in trouble.” 

Hugh pulled Fossil up opposite Marten’s hut beside the 
Dinosaur’s hangar. “Marten’s in Cheyenne. Let’s go in 
here before some one sees me and interrupts us,” he said. 

Within the shelter of the hut Fred, his eyes bright in 
the candle glow, told his story rapidly. 

“We got the dinosaur pretty well crated up before the 
big snow caught us last week. Then we decided we’d go 
investigate Pink. We had a lot of trouble getting up to 
his ranch. You know he’s mostly curving in from the 
west, using Quaking Asp post office. 

“Why, Hughie, he’s got a fine place there. He’s put 
up a lot of buildings and he’s got a Mormon family living 
in the house. But Pink’s the big chief.” 

“How did you discover all this?” asked Hugh. He sat 
down and lighted his pipe, glad to forget for a moment 
the greater cares that weighed him down. 

“O I left Red Wolf in the alfalfa stack beyond the 
home corrals, when we finally struck the place. It took 

294 


JESSIE 295 

us three days to work up the valley from our mesa. The 
snow was a million feet deep. We was half-dead when 
we got to Pink’s place. So I left Red Wolf and rolled up 
and banged on the kitchen door as brave as thunder. And 
the Mormon woman came to the door and in five minutes 
I knew all about the ranch and that Pink wasn’t expected 
home until the next day. So I invited Red Wolf and me 
there for the night. 

“Peterson, the husband, was off for supplies with Pink, 
so Mrs. Peterson was there alone. She’d been warned 
evidently not to talk about the gray stallion. But next 
morning I chopped a load of squaw wood for her, while 
Red Wolf, he prowled off on a hunt. He came back in a 
couple of hours and give me a look which I knew meant 
he’d found what he wanted. So I borrowed some bacon 
from Mrs. Peterson and we beat it. 

“And, Hughie, up in a kind of cave and natural corral, 
where there was not one chance in a thousand of any one 
locating him, was the stallion. I don’t suppose you ever 
did examine him, did you?’’ 

“I got a clear idea of him in the fight on the bridge,” 
said Hugh. “A superb specimen.” 

“Superb! I’ll say so! Why, Hughie, that horse is 
Morgan with a strain of Arab. I’ll bet you a hundred 
bits. And it’s not only that. He’s—well,” with a grin, 
“it’s like what they say about you. He’s got personality.” 

Hugh grinned in response. “What happened next?” 

“Well, do you know, Red Wolf sort of lost his head 
when he saw that horse. First time I ever saw him show 
excitement. The stallion was free in the corral and Red 
Wolf ropes him. And, of course, at that moment Pink 
comes along, riding hell-bent over our trail. And as he 
comes round the cedar clump that hides the cave, he takes 
a pot shot at old Red Wolf. He grazed the old Injun’s 


296 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

cheek. I hadn’t any gun, but I rode my horse into Pink’s. 
And old Red Wolf came up and took Pink’s gun and 
threw it away. Hughie, that old Sioux had sure gone 
amuck.” 

“Good heavens, Fred, when did all this happen?” 

“Three days ago. I know I’m making an awful long 
story of it. But I’m trying to make you see just how it 
was. I won’t try to describe that mix-up. Old Red Wolf 
he yells at me, ‘Keep off ’im, Fred! Keep off ’im! I’ll 
fix ’im for hurting Hughie. Me, I’ll fix ’im a heap.’ So 
me, I naturally backed off. Enjoying the round-up. Never 
thought of anything serious. Snow flying, you know, and 
horses squealing, and old Red Wolf banging into Pink’s 
pony and trying to rope Pink with his free hand. Pink 
swearing and trying to kick the old Injun with his spurs. 
Lord, it was funny. I laughed and laughed. 

“And then, all of a sudden, Hughie, Red Wolf had Pink 
down in the snow, had his legs tied and helpless, and he 
stood up over him and made him a speech about that old 
ranch him and his wife stole and about you and what Pink 
had done to you. Why, that old Sioux had the whole 
thing, stuff I never heard of about your wife and that 
Miss Page taking you away from the plains, and last of 
all the stallion, which it appears was to go for you, special. 
Pink, he cussed all the time and rolled around and old 
Red Wolf jabbered until he actually foamed at the mouth. 
I see ’em do that the time the Sioux were working them¬ 
selves up to the Fort Sioux massacre when I was a 
little kid. 

“And then, by God, Red Wolf pulls out his hunting 
knife, jerks off Pink’s cap and takes a scalp lock off of 
him about the size of a two-bit piece.” 

Hugh gasped and dropped his pipe. “What-” 

“I know it!” Fred held up his hand to prevent Hugh’s 



JESSIE 297 

interrupting. “I let out a yell, almost as loud as Pink’s. 
Red Wolf, he put the scalp lock in his pocket, mounted his 
horse, and beat it, leading the gray stallion. I took my 
handkerchief and Pink’s and bandaged the top of his head 
before I untied him. Hughie, he was the maddest, sickest 
cowman I ever saw. But he didn’t make any move to go 
after Red Wolf then. And I took him back to his bunch 
of Petersons and dumped him. Then I came hot-foot in 
here to you.” 

Hugh’s face in the candle light showed conflicting emo¬ 
tions that for a moment made speech impossible. 

Finally he gasped, “Is the wound a bad one?” 

“Mighty neat job, I’d say. He nipped out a piece of 
scalp on the crown of Pink’s old dome about as big as a 
quarter. Must be awful sore, and if he don’t get no balder 
it won’t show. Unless Pink gets proud of it and makes 
an exhibit of it. Of course, there’s mighty few living men 
has been scalped by a Sioux. Hughie, Red Wolf was a 
raving maniac! He had me scared. Why, I wouldn’t 
have dared to interfere if he’d tried to cut off Pink’s 
nose.” 

The two men stared at each other. Hugh’s lips twitched, 
and in spite of his realization of the seriousness of the 
situation for his old friend Red Wolf, his eyes twinkled. 
Fred suddenly burst into a loud guffaw. 

“My Lord, ain’t it funny, Hughie? Listen. I know 
you are the Governor and you’d oughtn’t to laugh when 
your father-in-law has been scalped, but go ahead. I’ll 
never tell on you. Why, Hughie, all the way in, and it was 
the worst horseback ride I ever took, I laughed. So help 
me the twelve apostles, I did! I’d think of what that pink 
sausage had done to Red Wolf and to you. Him being at 
the bottom of getting the row going over the dam site and 
all. And all the stuff we couldn’t exactly kill him for. 


298 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

And Red Wolf punishing him this way. It’s absolutely 
perfect, Hughie.” 

Hughie, still with the twinkle in his eye, heaved a great 
sigh. He rescued his pipe and refilled and lighted it. Fred 
watched him with interest. 

“Governor, it’s the first time I’ve seen you look like a 
human being since before Bookie died.” 

“I’m—I’m filled with a number of human thoughts, 
Fred,” said Hughie. “Among others, what shall I do for 
Red Wolf?” 

Fred nodded. “That’s why I hurried to you. The poor 
old Injun is in serious trouble. And if he stays mad, he’s 
as liable as anything in the world to war whoop through 
Fort Sioux with that scalp lock in his button-hole.” 

An inadvertent chuckle escaped Hugh. Fred emitted 
a joyous roar and quickly sobered himself to say, “It ain’t 
refined, Governor, for you to look amused.” 

“I know it, Fred,” said Hugh, apologetically. “This 
will be terribly mortifying to Jessie and her mother. 
We’ve got to keep it quiet if we can.” 

“Can’t be done,” returned Fred promptly. “Pink’s 
going to pose as a hero and turn the whole of Wyoming 
over to get Red Wolf jailed.” 

“He won’t get Red Wolf jailed.” Hugh’s jaw was set 
in the familiar way. “He’ll not harm-” 

Fred interrupted, “— hair of Red Wolf’s head!” Then 
he went off again into helpless laughter. 

Again Hugh chuckled, but broke off to say, “Neverthe¬ 
less, Fred, it is serious for the dear old Indian and I’ve 
got to choke Pink off somehow.” He rose as he spoke. 
“I’ve got to go up to Cheyenne tomorrow morning. I’ll 
only be gone a day. You can reach me at the Plains Hotel. 
If Pink gets in here before I return, your job is to get 



JESSIE 299 

him locked up, and wire me. If Red Wolf turns up, try 
to do the same by him.” 

“ ‘Try’ is the right word, Governor! If he’s still mad 
when he turns up, me, I’ll crawl under the bed and stay 
there till you get back.” 

“All right, old timer!” Hugh rocked with silent laugh¬ 
ter for a moment, then went out and mounted his horse. 

The next morning, before Mrs. Ellis, Johnny Parnell 
or any of his henchmen found him, Hugh had boarded the 
Limited for Cheyenne. Before midafternoon he had 
located old Charley Whitson and had asked him to arrange 
for a conference between Hugh and the “gang.” 

The session was held in Hugh’s suite at the hotel. It 
did not look like a gang, this group of keen-eyed, brown¬ 
faced plainsmen. But Hugh had no illusions as to its 
ability to drive a hard or an unclean bargain. He had 
come with his barter clearly planned, but, sitting before 
the waiting group, he was for a moment at a loss as to how 
to begin. His original idea had been to give no explana¬ 
tion as to motives. But, eyeing his audience with his new 
clarity of understanding, he believed that he ought to tell 
these men something of the truth. Yet, how to do it! 
He recalled vividly the reception old Whitson had given 
his confession the previous year. Many of the men before 
him had been at that hearing. But the experiment must 
be tried. 

He began to talk about Mrs. Ellis. He told of his 
meeting with her and of her frank hostility toward him. 
He worked on carefully through the year, his hearers 
gradually allowing themselves to show a casual interest in 
his story. He told of his own indifference to the Code and 
of the bargain he had struck with Mrs. Ellis on entering 
the political fight. Finally he reached the point where he 
had induced Mrs. Ellis to give the reason for her interest 


3 oo THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

in the Children’s Code. He paused for a moment after 
this, hoping that the set faces before him would soften, 
ever so little. But they did not. He hesitated, then he 
told the story of Dora. He told it very simply. 

“I don’t know how it may affect you folks,” he said in 
closing. “After all, I can give you only a feeble picture 
of the thing. But to me it made the Children’s Code the 
most important legislation before Wyoming today. It 
gave me a new idea of the function of government and of 
the duty of the men at the head of the government. It 
made me see Mrs. Ellis as the foremost lawmaker of the 
state, the citizen to whom we ought to raise a monument, 
at the mention of whose name we ought to remove our 
hats.” 

He paused. 

“It’s a pretty story, Stewart,” said a sneering voice. 
“But it probably didn’t happen.” 

Hugh flushed, and while fighting to keep a grip on him¬ 
self, he slowly lighted a cigar. Old Whitson suddenly 
leaned forward in his chair, staring at Hugh’s hands. 

“Stewart, your hands are peeling bad. By God, that 
water must have been boiling hot!” 

Hugh hastily thrust his hands into his pockets and a 
dead silence filled the room. Then the voice that had 
sneered said with husky contrition, “Sorry I made that 
break, Stewart!” 

Hugh rose slowly from his chair, looked from the 
window, then back at the waiting group. 

“I have a proposition to make to you gentlemen,” he 
said. “It is this. If you will permit the Children’s Code 
to go through without any change whatever, and with no 
legislation that will weaken its efficiency, I will withdraw 
my opposition to the building of the dam at Thumb 
Butte.” 


JESSIE 301 

Old Charley Whitson came to his feet with a jerk. “Do 
you know what you’re saying, Stewart?” 

“Yes, I do,” replied Hugh. 

“But we all thought the saving of the fossils was all you 
came into politics for!” shouted Whitson. 

“It was. But I’ve changed. That’s what I’ve been 
trying to explain to you for an hour.” 

The old politician stared at Hugh, frankly bewildered. 
“What’s back of it, Stewart?” 

“I’ve told you the story, Mr. Whitson. I’m no hand 
at intrigue,” replied Hugh. 

Several of the men laughed. “What do you call it, 
then, Stewart?” 

Hugh smiled and shook his head. There was a buzz 
of conversation, then Whitson exclaimed, “Look here, 
Stewart, there’s a devil of a lot of opposition to that Code 
in the state.” 

“You mean,” asked Hugh innocently, “that you don’t 
want to make yourself unpopular, or that you can’t 
deliver?” 

Whitson looked at Hugh sharply. Some one in the 
group gave a guffaw which was quickly suppressed. 
Whitson had his followers well in hand. There was no 
further interruption while the old warrior and the new 
warrior measured each other’s strength. Hugh had 
learned in the political fight in the year just ended how 
greatly, both financially and as a matter of his prestige as 
party leader, old Charley wanted the dam built at Fort 
Sioux. He had little doubt as to the outcome of the 
session. So he waited patiently. 

“Can you deliver?” demanded the old man. “We 
understood the Eastern Electric got control of the tract, 
but we couldn’t verify it. They swore they didn’t.” 

“My wife bought it in,” said Hugh. 


302 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

‘Til be hanged!” grunted Whitson. Then, curiously, 
“How are you going to justify yourself to the state for 
reneging?” 

“Tell ’em the truth,” replied Hugh, simply. 

Whitson scratched his head and grinned with extreme 
satisfaction. “Looks to me like we will all get some 
glory out of it, eh?” 

A chuckle went round the room, and a grizzled member 
of the legislature who had been leading the filibuster, said, 
“And so you can’t intrigue, as you call it, Stewart?” 

Hugh lifted his chin. “You fail to get the point, 
Brownell, that I think Whitson has finally got. What 
I’ve told you really happened.” 

“O, I get that, old timer!” hastily explained Brownell. 
“But what impresses me is the skill with which you use 
facts.” 

Hugh grinned and picked up his overcoat. “I’m going 
to get the six o’clock flyer back to Fort Sioux. There will 
be details, Whitson, which perhaps you won’t mind taking 
up with me in The Lariat, or wait for till after the 
inauguration.” 

Whitson nodded. “By the way, how is the book-selling 
business, Stewart?” 

“The trading in beadwork for bound magazines is 
noticeable,” replied Hugh. “But since Johnny Parnell 
went into politics the sale of western fiction has fallen off 
about ninety per cent.” 

There was a laugh, during which Hugh made his way 
from the room. 

Hugh had had some big moments in his life, but he was 
sure that to none of them had he looked forward as he 
did to the moment when he could tell Mrs. Ellis of the fate 
of the Code. He desired very much to choose exactly the 
right and dramatic moment for the announcement; when 


JESSIE 303 

he should be alone with the mother of the Code and she, 
of course, in black despair. But somehow, big moments 
are difficult to arrange for. Johnny Parnell, Jessie and 
Mrs. Ellis arrived together the next morning before Hugh 
had finished shaving. Hugh gave the group a disgusted 
glance and lathered his chin again. None of the three 
heeded the look or the lather. 

“Looks like we couldn’t put that swap over, Governor,” 
began-Johnny. 

“Some one has sold out to the Whitson gang,” said 
Mrs. Ellis. 

“We aren’t sure,” Jessie’s deliberate voice took up the 
tale. “But I was certain last night that I had the Cattle¬ 
men’s Committee solid. This morning the chairman sent 
me word that we’d better call off the whole matter.” 

Hugh wiped his face, and knotted his tie with infinite 
care. Mrs. Ellis sat forward impatiently. “For heaven’s 
sake, Hughie, haven’t you waked up yet?” 

“I don’t see why you’d thrust a load like this on a man 
who’s had no breakfast,” returned Hugh plaintively. 
“However, since you’re here, I may as well endure it.” 

“Why did you go to Cheyenne yesterday?” demanded 
Mrs. Ellis, unmoved by Hugh’s plaint. 

“Please, ma’am,” he replied, coming forward to stand 
meekly before her, “I went to Cheyenne to arrange with 
old Charley Whitson to let us put the Children’s Code 
through as it is.” 

“Don’t joke about it, Hughie!” exclaimed Mrs. Ellis. 

“I’m not joking. I made a swap of my own.” 

“You made a swap? What swap?” roared Johnny. 

“I told him he could build the dam at Thumb Butte if 
he’d deliver us the Children’s Code.” 

Dead silence, save for the rush of the river. 


304 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Finally, “But, Hughie, your stone birds!” gasped 
Johnny. 

Hugh’s lips were a little stiff, but he replied cheerfully, 
“I’ll find them elsewhere, perhaps.” 

Jessie stared at him, growing wonder in her deep-set 
eyes. 

Mrs. Ellis, plump figure rigid, face white and set, put 
out an uncertain hand. “Hughie! Explain! I can’t 
stand it.” 

Hugh, with his familiar wistful smile, took her hand 
in his and said: “It seemed a just sort of thing to do.” 
He paused, realizing that he must make himself clear. He 
turned slowly to his old position against the counter. 

“I’ve been unhappy,” he said. “I’ve been lonely. I’ve 
been self-centered and socially blind. But since Bookie’s 
death-” He paused. This was hard to do over again. 

Jessie suddenly interrupted. “Mrs. Ellis, you don’t 
want him to explain, do you? That kind of an explana¬ 
tion hurts.” 

“I don’t want to hurt him,” said Mrs. Ellis, pitifully. 
“I just want to know what happened. It’s life or death 
to me, Jessie.” 

“Well,” Hugh went on abruptly, “I made up my mind 
that the Children’s Code was the biggest thing in Wyo¬ 
ming. So yesterday I had a conference with Charley 
Whitson and his gang. I offered them the thing they 
wanted most, the Thumb Butte dam site, and they snapped 
it up.” 

Mrs. Ellis came slowly to her feet. “Hughie! Hughie! 
Hughie!” 

Hugh tried to make his voice casual. “Fine, isn’t it !” 

But Mrs. Ellis would not have it so. She threw her 
arms about him. “Hughie! Hughie!” and she broke 
down and began to cry. 



JESSIE 305 

Hugh, his arm about her heaving shoulders, smiled 
down on her gray head, but said nothing. 

It was Johnny who saved the situation from becoming 
too poignant. “Well, old timer, for a man with an empty 
stomach, I’ll say you have done some business this morn¬ 
ing,” he boomed. 

Mrs. Ellis whirled around and wiped her eyes. “My 
heavens, Jessie! Can’t you get your husband some 
breakfast?” 

Jessie, her violet eyes still full of wonder and an 
inscrutable sort of tenderness, shook her head with a mis¬ 
chievous smile. “I’d say that was your duty, Mrs. Ellis.” 

The mother of the Code strangled a sob with a laugh. 
“I’d get him his breakfast for the rest of his life, if he 
wanted me to! No, don’t come, Jessie! I want to get 
the tray myself.” 

She hurried out. Johnny, with the tact peculiar to him¬ 
self, glanced from Elugh to Jessie. “I reckon she’ll load 
that tray so’s she’ll need help,” he grumbled, and he 
slammed the door behind him. 

Hugh chuckled and lighted his pipe, then he looked at 
Jessie seriously. “In my opinion,” he said, “Mrs. Ellis 
is the biggest figure in Wyoming. Possibly in the 
country.” 

“You and she will do some real work in Cheyenne,” 
Jessie nodded her head. “Hughie, does your sacrifice 
mean that you are giving up paleontology?” 

Hugh’s answer was given carefully. “I haven’t ar¬ 
ranged a program for myself. I’m trying to keep the 
long view that my work has given me. I’m feeling my 
way toward the light. I can see a million years behind 
me. Only one day ahead of me. It’s very difficult. But 
I think I’m moving with the procession. After a time I 
may know whither.” He laid a long hand on the block of 


306 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

fossil skin which still reposed beside the cash register, 
smoothed it gently, then looked up at Jessie with an 
expression of wistfulness. “But I don’t want to give 
up my work, for good and all. Jessie, do you think I 
ought to?” 

“No!” cried Jessie. “No!” 

His regard of her for the first time during the inter¬ 
view became personal. “Do you know what you are 
saying, Jessie?” 

“Yes, I know what I’m saying. You’ve sacrificed 
enough. You’ve suffered enough.” 

“Sacrifice! Jessie, it was your legacy that gave Mrs. 
Ellis the Sioux Tract.” 

“No, it wasn’t, Hughie! It was my legacy that gave 
the tract to you. I didn’t in the least care what became 
of that money except that it give you something tremen¬ 
dous. Of course, I’m glad that Mrs. Ellis has her Code. 
She is big and I am going to help her every way I can. 
But to me the point about the legacy is not that it delivered 
the Code, but that it allowed me to make up to you for 
some of the neglect of other years.” 

“You shame me, Jessie,” said Hugh in a low voice. 

She gave a gesture of impatience. “That’s not the feel¬ 
ing I want to give you.” 

Hugh’s gaze rested on hers. “Jessie, I am only a shell 
of a man. The sort of feeling that I had for Miriam can 
come but once.” 

“I don’t want the sort you gave her,” Jessie lifted her 
chin proudly. “I want what you can give the real me. 
The me that was born this summer out on the plains. The 
kind of love that you couldn’t give me before, nor Miriam, 
because you, the you that gave Mrs. Ellis her Code wasn’t 
born until after Miriam died.” 

Hugh did not reply for a moment, then he said: “My 


JESSIE 307 

love for Miriam was very real. Even though the person 
I thought she was never existed/’ 

“I know that,” Jessie’s lips quivered slightly, but her 
voice was steady, “and if you had remained the same man 
who gave Miriam that love, I’d know you could not care 
for me. Love is a curious thing, Hughie. If you are a 
growing, changing human being, old love drops away with 
the old habits of thought. It has to be so. If you are a 
person who reaches a young maturity and ceases to develop 
for good and all, first love will suffice.” 

Hugh watched her intently. She was standing against 
the bookcase opposite, her splendid, gold-crowned head 
held proudly, her strong face with the new look of patience 
about the lips flushed by the endeavor to make him under¬ 
stand. The expression of wistfulness in his eyes deep¬ 
ened. He wanted to make Jessie feel how completely he 
did recognize the new fineness in her. He felt that all that 
she said was true. And yet, he believed that he had noth¬ 
ing save this new respect to offer her. Jessie did not wait 
for him to speak, however. 

“You’re tired, Hughie,” she said slowly. “Much tireder 
than I. I’ve been concentrating all these months on one 
thing. While you’ve had demands on you that would 
break a common man.” 

“Jessie! Jessie! I wish I could give you all. I don’t 
make them for myself. I know what I’ve been. Selfish. 
Selfish as even you can’t realize. But-” 

Her deliberate turning toward the door interrupted him. 
She did not speak until her hand was on the knob. 

“I’m never going to bother you again, Hughie. Good¬ 
bye, my dear.” And she was gone; gone with, for the 
first time, the droop of failure in the upright line of her 
fine body. 

The memory of this sudden change of posture stayed in 



3 o8 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

the background of Hugh’s thought all that long, busy day. 

Late that evening he and Mrs. Ellis were alone for a 
short time. The mother of the Code was in a beatific 
frame of mind and had turned off enough work during 
the day to have exhausted half a dozen women. It was, 
however, a keen and alert eye that she turned on Hugh. 

‘‘Jessie told me today that she was not going to Chey¬ 
enne with you, but that she was taking up a permanent 
residence at the ranch. Of course, a man shouldn’t ask 
his wife to give up her profession for any light reason. 
But I do wish she were going to the Governor’s mansion 
with you. Can’t it be arranged?” 

“I don’t see how it can be, Mrs. Ellis.” 

“Have you tried, Hughie?” 

“I haven’t wanted to try. Surely, after our conversation 
of the other day, you know enough of the circumstances, 
Mrs. Ellis, to realize that I have nothing to offer Jessie. 
I’ve grown to admire her as I never did before. But I 
can’t pretend to be what I am not.” 

“Nobody asks you to be,” sniffed Mrs. Ellis. “Hughie, 
I’m not a bit literary, but I have stored in my mind a few 
scraps of verse that mean a good deal to me. This is the 
best one of all: 

“ ‘For to bear all naked truths, 

And to envisage circumstance, all calm, 

That is the top of sovereignty.’ ” 

Hugh looked at her with deep understanding in his 
eyes. 

“That’s what made me give up the tract. At last I suf¬ 
fered enough to envisage truth.” 

“Yes, Hughie, you did. You finally saw the relation¬ 
ship between birth and death, between childhood and social 
progress. But you still are blind about the impulse back 
of it all.” 


JESSIE 309 

“You mean the will to achieve,” agreed Hugh. 

“Nonsense! Don’t be so disgustedly impersonal, 
Hughie ! I mean love. Love of man for woman.” 

Hughie walked slowly the length of the room and back. 
“What do you know about love, Mrs. Ellis?” he asked 
abruptly. 

She looked up at him. “Hughie, I know a great deal 
about it. I know enough to realize that I’ve missed the 
real thing and that I’m too old now ever to have it.” 

Hugh put his hand on her shoulder and for a long 
moment the two gazed into each other’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” 
Hugh said at last. 

“It’s quite all right with me,” Mrs. Ellis smiled. “The 
Code is big. But for you, I feel as your mother would 
have felt. I grudge your missing the great thing. You’ll 
not do your big work till you experience it.” 

“I have experienced it,” said Hugh, quietly. 

“Miriam Page,” Mrs. Ellis chose each word carefully, 
“drew on the selfish, work-centered side of your nature. 
It was so strongly developed a side that you experienced 
a simply tremendous sensation in connection with her. 
But, Hughie, you have left that side of you behind.” 

“Perhaps I have,” agreed Hugh, “but, Mrs. Ellis, does 
that mean going back to Jessie?” 

“Going back! Hughie, no! Going forward. Jessie 
has suffered too. And she is rather a tremendous person. 
Why, Hugh, just consider the attitude that she took to¬ 
ward Miriam Page!” 

“No one appreciates it more than I do now,” Hugh 
sighed as he spoke. “But—” he hesitated, then exclaimed 
vehemently, “Good God! Jessie is a great lover! She 
deserves to be married to a great lover. And I am only 
a collector of fossils!” 

There was a long silence in The Lariat. Finally Mrs. 


3 io THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Ellis rose. “It’s been my big day, Hughie, thanks to you. 
Good night, my boy!” 

And Hugh went to bed wondering just when and how 
he had come to such a derogatory opinion of himself as a 
lover. 

Early the next morning Fred appeared, sidling into The 
Lariat in a manner at once mysterious and dignified. He 
had watched for his moment and Hugh was alone. 

“I got Pink, Governor,” he said in a low voice. 

“Where?” exclaimed Hugh. 

“Down in Marten’s shack. I had to tell Marten when he 
got back yesterday. He sort of enticed him in. We saw 
him crossing the bridge at sun-up. He was heading for 
Doc Olson.” 

“Has he seen you?” asked Hugh. 

“Only my back view as I started up here for you. Can’t 
you come down there now?” 

“Yes. Fred, how would it do to turn Mrs. Morgan loose 
on him? I have quite a drag with her now, you know.” 

Fred grinned. “I think Pink ought to be shot, but I’ll 
be hanged if I think he deserves that much punishment, to 
have her turned on him. But if you fail, we’ll try it.” 

Pink was sitting with Marten at breakfast, his head 
turbaned like a Hindu’s, when Hugh entered the hut, 
Fred at his heels. He did not return Hugh’s greeting, 
and scowled at Fred’s cheerful announcement. 

“Well, boys, here’s the Gray Stallion out for a morn¬ 
ing’s warm up.” 

Hugh sat down on a soap box beside the stove. “Fred 
told me about your trouble with Red Wolf, Pink,” he 
began casually. “What do you plan to do about it?” 

“None of your blank business,” growled Pink. 

“Here! Don’t you speak to the governor of this state 
like that,” snapped Marten. 


JESSIE 311 

“He’s my son-in-law,” sneered Pink. 

“I don’t care if he’s your brother. You treat him with 
politeness or I’ll take a scalp lock out of you myself.” 
Marten was red of face. 

“Never mind all that!” said Hugh, impatiently. “What 
I want from Pink is a square answer to a square question. 
What are you going to try to do to my old friend Red 
Wolf?” 

“I’m going to shoot him.” 

“You haven’t the nerve. Come, Pink, talk straight 
man’s talk to me, will you?” 

Pink sat forward in his chair. “What am I going to 
do to that blank, blank Sioux? Well, sir, I’m going to 
have the law on him and I’ll have him sent over to Rawlins 
for the rest of his life. I got money. Plenty of it. And 
I’ll use it to get that Indian with.” 

“No, Pink, I don’t think you will,” said Hugh. “You 
got what you richly deserve, and you are going to take 
your punishment like a man. For you were a man in the 
old days, Pink, before you threw aside decency to put over 
the big treachery on me.” 

“I’m to go thank the Injun for his delicate attentions, 
I suppose,” snarled Pink. 

“No, you are just to let him alone and keep your mouth 
shut about the whole performance. Laying aside every¬ 
thing else, you have no right to mortify your wife and 
Jessie by starting that kind of a row going.” 

“Very considerate of them all of a sudden, ain’t you?” 
grunted Pink. 

“Something like that, yes,” agreed Hugh. “Pink, I 
don’t want to threaten you about this. I just want to 
appeal to your sense of decency. Forget your grudge 
against me! Why should you harbor one? You have 
won at every point. You put over the Thumb Butte site.” 


312 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“I did not! You’ve blocked it.” 

“No, I haven’t. I gave in on it.” 

Pink blinked as though he were dizzy, and Hugh went 
on. “You have the dam site. You destroyed my greatest 
dinosaur. You forced me into politics. You have your 
horse ranch and plenty of money. You’ve acted like a 
skunk for a couple of years. And all you’ve had to pay for 
the whole achievement is a bit of scalp flesh. Forget Red 
Wolf and be a sport, Pink.” 

As Pink listened to Hugh’s gentle, beguiling voice, his 
fat face softened. Hugh was infinitely persuasive as he 
leaned toward his father-in-law. 

“Come now, Pink, you and I have stood back to back 
through many and varied fights. Let’s let by-gones go and 
start fresh. You let the gray stallion go and I’ll let the 
dinosaur go.” 

Pink’s mouth had relaxed more and more, until Hugh 
mentioned the gray stallion. Then his face hardened 
instantly. He brought his fist down on the table. 

“No! I want that horse and I’ll have it. And I’ll nail 
that Sioux’s hide up on the penitentiary door at Rawlins.” 

He looked defiantly from Hugh to the others. 

“Is that final, Pink?” asked Hugh. 

“Yes, it is!” replied his father-in-law flatly. 

“Very well!” Hugh turned to Marten. “I wish you’d 
go up to the Indian Massacre and bring Mrs. Morgan 
down here. And Marten, keep your lips tight.” 

Marten picked up his mackinaw. 

“Wait a minute!” said Pink. “Wait a minute!” 

“No,” Hugh spoke grimly. “I’m through arguing with 
you, Pink. Go quickly, Marten.” 

“But I don’t w'ant her in on it. Anyhow,” with sudden 
cheerfulness, “she’s washed her hands of me and won’t 
come.” 


JESSIE 313 

“We’ll see,” said Hugh, and he took out his note-book 
and proceeded to go over the list of business that would 
press on him during the day. 

In a remarkably short time, the jitney barked outside 
the hut and Mrs. Morgan came in, followed by Marten. 
Pink slumped sullenly in his chair. Hugh placed a chair 
for his mother-in-law, then stood against the wall. 

“Mrs. Morgan,” he said, “Fred and Red Wolf located 
the gray stallion up on Pink’s ranch, last week. Red 
Wolf tried to get away with the stallion. Pink took a 
shot at the old Indian, the bullet grazing his cheek. Then 
Pink and Red Wolf had a fearful mix-up, which resulted 
in the old Sioux taking a piece of scalp about the size of a 
quarter off the top of Pink’s head. Then he got away, 
taking with him the scalp lock and the stallion. I’ve failed 
to persuade Pink not to make trouble over the matter. 
That’s why I’ve sent for you.” 

Mrs. Morgan looked at her husband with interest. 
“Why, he must have gone crazy! He really scalped you, 
Pink ? Well, you deserved it. I hope it will make a better 
man of you.” 

“Do you mean to tell me that I shouldn’t have the law 
on that blank Sioux?” shouted Pink. 

“I think he ought to be sent to jail, but you aren’t going 
to send him there, just the same. I’ve suffered all the 
mortification from your lack of refinement I ever intend 
to, Pink.” 

“No, it ain’t refined to be scalped, I’ll admit that!” 
roared Pink. “And it won’t be refined for Red Wolf to 
be sent to Rawlins, either.” 

“He’s not going to be sent to Rawlins,” declared Mrs. 
Morgan. She was sitting on the edge of her chair looking 
seriously from Pink to Hugh, her little bird-like head 
turning quickly from one to the other. “Let this tiling get 


3 i 4 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

into the courts and all our early association with Red Wolf 
will come out. And while there was nothing illegal about 
^vhat we did, I’ve begun to regret it and don’t want it 
aired. In fact, none of this must come out. It would 
mortify Jessie and me beyond words. ,r 

Pink was outraged. He rose, shaking his fists to the 
ceiling. “And I’m to be scalped and robbed, by a blank 
Injun, to keep you from being mortified! Just let me tell 
you that I’m going to get that Indian and that horse if I 
have to tell the story to every man, woman and child in 
Wyoming!” 

“O no you aren’t,” said Mrs. Morgan, complacently. 
She sat studying him as she might have studied a recal¬ 
citrant horse. “You are a mess, Pink,” she said, finally, 
“in every way. I’ve washed my hands of you, and they 
are going to stay washed. But that doesn’t say I’m going 
to let you make a laughing stock of the family when I can 
prevent it. You come up to the hotel and go to bed and 
stay there till you can see sense.” 

“I won’t!” shouted Pink. 

“You’ll drive us back, won’t you, Marten?” asked Mrs. 
Morgan. “Come along, Pink.” 

“Want any help, Mrs. Morgan?” Fred started slowly 
toward Pink. 

“No. He’ll come. It’s early enough so’s no one will 
notice us. My goodness, Pink, you are dirty. You come 
straight home and get a bath and go to bed.” 

And Pink followed after her, casting as he did so an 
ugly glance at Hugh. 

Hugh considered the glance for a moment, then he said 
to Fred: “Well, he’s safe for a few days, anyhow. I hope 
,we’ll have as much luck in getting hold of Red Wolf.” 

But Red Wolf did not materialize, and in the prepara¬ 
tions for the inaugural, Hugh almost forgot the matter. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE OLD RANCH 

J OHNNY PARNELL confessed that he knew very 
little if anything, first hand, about installing a Governor 
in office. But he did know that Hugh had an entire dis¬ 
regard of pomp and ceremony, and Johnny, who loved 
gesture, proposed that his old range buddy should become 
chief executive of Wyoming with as elaborate a flourish 
as could be crowded into one short January day, and he 
therefore made himself master of the inaugural cere¬ 
monies. Nor did he propose that any convention should 
be overlooked. So he urged Hugh to have Jessie present 
at the morning ceremonies and at the inaugural ball in the 
evening. 

“I doubt if she’ll come,” said Hugh, abruptly. 

‘‘She won’t for me. I’ve tried her out,” agreed Johnny, 
opening his jackknife and picking the ice out of his spurs. 
“But she will for you.” 

“I don’t see why I should try to get her to do something 
she doesn’t want to do,” objected Hugh. 

“Great suffering wildcats, man!” shouted Johnny. 
“She’d come if she knew you wanted her!” 

“But I don’t want her,” grunted Hugh. 

Johnny strode over to Hugh’s chair and stooped to look 
into Hugh’s face. “You mean to tell me, Stewart, after 
all that girl has done-” 

“You’re intruding again, Parnell!” Hugh returned suc¬ 
cinctly. 

Johnny turned on his heel and went out, slamming the 

315 



3 i6 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

door behind him. But he had succeeded in making Hugh 
uneasy, and about noon Fort Sioux saw the Governor 
elect mount Fossil and start through the deep, fresh fallen 
snow that covered the trail to the Dude Ranch. 

It was one of the sapphire tinted days that makes a 
winter in the upper altitudes of Wyoming unforgetable. 
The plains were a translucent glowing blue, purple deep, 
where mighty drifts cast wave-like shadows. The sky 
delicately remote belled like a mighty turquoise over the 
glowing world. There was utter silence. Utter stillness. 
Hugh and Fossil moved alone in all the universe. Hugh 
breathed deep of the biting air and thought of the days 
to come at the Governor’s desk in Cheyenne. He was not 
sure that he was going to be able to stick it out. 

Several miles from the ranch the solitude was broken 
when Hugh caught sight of a figure moving rapidly along 
the trail before him. He could not at first distinguish 
whether it was man or woman. He spurred Fossil on and 
shortly picked up ski tracks. A little later he saw that the 
skier was tall and slender and wore a scarlet mackinaw. 
It was Jessie, and he gave a long Sioux cry. She turned 
and moved slowly back toward him. 

“Hello, Hughie!” she said as Fossil galloped up. “Cold, 
isn’t it?” 

“Below zero, I guess. Been anywhere in particular, 
Jessie?” 

“No! I like to ski. Magpie has gone lame.” 

“I came up to ask you to come to the inaugural cere¬ 
monies with me, Jessie.” 

Jessie looked up at him, cheeks crimson, eyes deep blue 
and inscrutable. 

“Thanks, Hughie, I don’t care to go.” 

“Johnny Parnell thinks it will look bad if you aren’t 
there,” said Hugh. 


THE OLD RANCH 317 

‘‘Since when were you troubled by appearances?” 
drawled Jessie. 

“Me? I’m not troubled at all. I want you to have the 
pleasure of being there.” 

The color receded from Jessie’s cheeks, leaving her face 
singularly austere. She lifted her chin in the old gesture. 

“Hughie, I guess you didn’t understand the last thing 
I said to you the other day. I meant that I was through. 
As long as you needed me, or I mean, as long as I could 
do things for you that no one else could, I was willing to 
humiliate myself. But now you don’t need me any more. 
And I’m going to live my own life to myself.” 

“But don’t you want to come to the ceremonies?” 
blundered Hugh. 

“As the unloved wife of the great man?” asked Jessie. 
“No, thank you, Hughie. I haven’t a sense of duty now 
to sustain me. I have planned an interesting life for my¬ 
self. I don’t need you either. Go along and get yourself 
made into a Governor.” 

Vaguely resentful, bewildered, Hugh stared at her. 
“You don’t care about me any more, Jessie?” 

“Wouldn’t it relieve you to know that I was through?” 
asked his wife. 

Hugh still stared at her white face. “I’d like to have 
something left out of the wreck of my life,” he exclaimed. 

“What do you mean by wreck?” demanded Jessie. 

“Everything that I have cared about. You don’t think 
I enjoy being Governor? You don’t think that I would 
swap one of those days I spent in the Dinosaur Cave get¬ 
ting out the triceratops for my whole term of office? O 
I’ll go through with it. But you, at least, must have no 
illusions about it.” 

“Hughie, I’m truly sorry about your work. You don’t 


3 i8 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

know how many of your speeches I’ve heard. You 
educated me just as you did every one else.” 

“I wish I could have educated you years ago,” said 
Hugh, tensely. “Then you won’t come up to Cheyenne, 
Jessie?” 

“No, Hugh! I’ve done my bit—I’m freezing to death, 
here. Will you come back to the ranch for a cup of 
coffee?” 

Hugh did not reply for the moment. He was staring 
at Jessie with all that Mrs. Ellis had said of her flooding 
his mind. Suddenly he found himself curious about what 
had been going on inside of Jessie’s brain. It was the 
first time he recalled ever having felt this particular 
curiosity. 

“Yes,” he said, slowly, “I’ll go back to the ranch with 
you. Would you like to mount Fossil while I take the 
skis?” 

“No, thanks. I can keep up with Fossil’s trot.” 

The sun was low in the west, and the unearthly blue 
of the world glowed with rose. Jessie, gliding slightly 
ahead of the trotting horse, was silhouetted against the 
limitless snowy wastes in lines of extraordinary virile 
grace. She was crimson and gold, as if, Hugh thought, 
the opalescent fire of the landscape centered upon her. 

They made no attempt at conversation until the ranch 
was reached. There Hugh left Fossil at the door and 
followed Jessie into the living room. It was long since 
he had visited the old place. The great room still was 
decorated with the Navajos that his mother had hung on 
the walls. Jessie had had the fireplace built. It glowed 
now with cedar logs. There was the indescribable atmos¬ 
phere of home about it. Jessie had not put this into their 
rooms in the hotel. And although The Lariat was home, 


THE OLD RANCH 


3i9 

it never, Hugh now suddenly realized, had been home¬ 
like. 

“Sit down by the fire, Hugh, and I’ll tell Li Wing to 
make us coffee,” said Jessie, pulling off her mackinaw. 

When she returned Hugh stared at her. “Jessie, I know 
why we drifted apart. We never needed each other.” 

Jessie dropped into the armchair opposite Hugh. Her 
blue blouse, open at the neck, disclosed the fine white 
column of her throat. Her cheeks were deep rose from 
cold and exercise. Her eyes blue violet. Perhaps she was 
not beautiful, in the sense that Miriam had been beautiful, 
but surely her vitality, her strength, had a loveliness of 
their own. A loveliness that Hugh felt subconsciously* 
while he concentrated on this new idea concerning their 
old relationship. 

“I’m not sure that we didn’t need each other,” said 
Jessie in her deliberate way. “We were both too selfish 
and self-centered to understand our own or each other’s 
need.” 

Hugh sighed. “Well, it’s a great pity we didn’t wake 
up years ago.” 

“Why do you say that? Do you wish you never had 
met Miriam Page?” asked Jessie, her eyes deepening as 
she spoke. 

“No. I’m glad. She gave me some perfect hours and 
some exquisite dreams. The thing I can’t forgive her 
for is that she left the memory of those permanently 
tainted by her treachery.” 

“It wasn’t exactly treachery,” protested Jessie, reluc¬ 
tantly. 

“It was treachery,” insisted Hugh, uncompromisingly. 
“What her motives were only adds to the cruelty of it. 
I can’t bear the thought of the whole thing. And yet, 
Jessie, I have a strange feeling of destiny about her. I 


320 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

have suffered horribly about her. Her death was a terrible 
blow. Yet I don’t regret the episode.” 

“Episode!” repeated Jessie. “Episode! Why, Hughie, 
little as I knew her, much as I hated her, I realized that it 
was the great thing of her life.” 

“Her ambition was the great thing of Miriam’s life as 
my work was of mine,” contradicted Hugh. 

“Was of yours, Hughie?” 

Hugh hesitated. “Jessie, I care about it more than 
ever. I long for it with increasing hunger. And yet, I 
can see that there are things I can do that are more 
valuable; for the moment, at least.” 

There was a long silence, during which Li Wing 
brought in coffee and rice cakes and shuffled out. When 
she had served Hugh, Jessie said, carefully: 

“Hughie, if I had given you a divorce and you had 
married Miriam Page, what would you have demanded 
of your marriage to her?” 

“I hadn’t thought of that. You’ll have to give me 
time, Jessie.” He finished his coffee in silence, then went 
on. “As I felt that summer she was here, I suppose that 
what I really wanted most was the wonderful sympathy 
for my work which I thought she had. As I feel now, 
I’d have wanted her to give me something I think she’d 
have been unwilling to give me, perhaps incapable of 
giving.” 

Jessie nodded. “Hughie, has it ever occurred to you 
that perhaps the reason we all instinctively resented your 
being so absorbed in paleontology was because it cut you 
off from life? Wait a moment. It’s hard to find words. 
I mean that you had that wonderful long view, as you call 
it, of the past, which was fine as f?r as it went. But you 
always stopped flat with the dinosaurs. You didn’t see 
the march of life on into the future. You talked a lot 


THE OLD RANCH 


321 

about opening up the past for future generations to read. 
You never saw yourself as one of the torchbearers of life, 
with a race obligation to hand the lighted torch on.” 

Hugh listened intently. When Jessie paused, he said, 
“I’ve realized that, Jess, but only since Christmas. Jessie, 
let me tell you what happened on Christmas Eve. You 
knew about the baby, of course. But let me give you the 
whole story.” 

Jessie, wide-eyed, scarcely daring to breathe lest she 
mar this first of Hugh’s confidences, felt as if she could 
not bear the poignancy Hugh gave to this other woman’s 
sacrifice. When he had finished the account with the 
return of Marten and the doctor, he said, “No man could 
have gone through that and not have felt differently about 
his mother and his wife.” 

Jessie clasped her hands desperately to her breast. “I 
never was a real wife to you. I refused motherhood,” 
with a little sob. 

Hugh nodded. “Yes, Jessie, but I refused fatherhood, 
tacitly. I didn’t want a baby to interfere with my fossils.”' 

“And so,” exclaimed Jessie, “you gave up your fossils 
for the Children’s Code!” 

“Yes,” replied Hugh. 

Li Wing came in with a lighted lamp. Hugh, with a 
start, looked at his watch. “I’ve a conference at seven 
o’clock.” He rose, looking down on Jessie, half whim¬ 
sically, “So you won’t come up to the inaugural, Jessie?” 

Jessie smiled, but shook her head, “I meant what I said, 
Hughie. You don’t need me. My job is finished.” 

“Do you need me, Jessie?” asked Hugh, with sudden 

seriousness. 

Jessie looked into the fire. “Hughie,” she said, “it’s 
not my business to answer that question. It’s not a ques¬ 
tion of my demanding, but of your giving, of your seeing 


322 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

and wanting to give. And,” now looking bravely up into 
his eyes, “I’ve made up my mind that time will never come 
and I’m going to give you your divorce.” 

“What!” shouted Hugh. 

“Of course, I’ll get it. That’s the way it’s done,” said 
Jessie. 

“But look here, Jessie, I’m not asking for that, am I?” 

“You have asked for it before, Hughie. Now it’s I that 
ask for it. You go along now to your engagement and 
think it over.” 

“But I’m not sure that I want to think it over. Jessie, 
are you beginning to care for some other man?” 

“Certainly not!” exclaimed Jessie, indignantly. “It’s 
just that I finally understand your feeling toward me.” 

“O you do, do you!” muttered Hugh. He turned, with 
a curious resentment, and jerked himself into his coat. 
Then, with a puzzled look in his eyes, he gave Jessie a long 
stare and an abrupt “Good-by!” and strode into the night. 

He rode home entirely absorbed in reviewing this con¬ 
versation with Jessie, concentrating his thoughts at last 
on its startling finale. He felt distinctly resentful. If 
Jessie cared for no one else, he could see no reason why 
matters should not remain as they were. Anyhow, divorce 
proceedings now, he told himself, would hurt his prestige 
as Governor. But he had the grace to laugh at himself at 
this last thought, as he recalled his many repudiations of 
Mrs. Ellis’ warnings along this very line. 

Probably no one enjoyed the inauguration more than 
Johnny Parnell nor less than Hughie. Owing to the irre¬ 
pressible instinct of the Wyomingite for the picturesque, 
there was no inconsiderable amount of pomp connected 
with the day. The high moment was at the close of 
Hugh’s inaugural address. Curiously enough, this never 
could be read in the archives of the state as a great speech. 


THE OLD RANCH 323 

Yet the vast assemblage that listened to Hugh was fully 
persuaded that Wyoming had produced at last its great 
man. It was a situation peculiar to American politics. 

Hugh’s story was familiar to every one now. Even the 
tale of the swap of the Sioux Tract for the Children’s 
Code had reached the remotest parts of the state. Here 
was romance, here was idealism, here was steadfastness 
and self-sacrifice. Outside of the political rings, they 
gave not a fig what his politics might be. Here was the 
man they had clothed in the finest of their dreams. And 
they were going by their half-mad enthusiasm to force 
him to wear the fabric as his own. 

Hugh felt this keenly and sadly as the endless lines of 
people filed by him, clasping his hand, praising him, con¬ 
gratulating each other and the state. He wanted them to 
know how utterly inadequate he felt, but after one or two 
deprecatory remarks he gave up the attempt. Mob 
enthusiasm is not to be stayed by mere self-depreciation. 

The most picturesque moment of the day occurred when 
Hugh was leaving the capitol building to attend a function 
at the Governor’s mansion. A crowd, half mob, half 
procession, was waiting to escort him. There were cav¬ 
alrymen, spick and span in winter uniforms. There were 
cowmen with chaps and neckerchiefs fluttering. There 
were Indians in blankets and buckskins and miners and 
railroad men in overalls. There were two or three over¬ 
land stage-coaches loaded with shouting school children. 
Hugh paused to smile at the motley gathering. Johnny’s 
idea of massing Wyoming’s short history into the Gov¬ 
ernor’s escort was picturesque in the extreme. 

One of the Indians, catching sight of Hugh, galloped 
to the steps, leading a horse on whose back was a beautiful 
silver-mounted saddle. Reaching the steps, he deliberately 
forced his horse to mount and the led horse to follow. 


324 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Red Wolf!” cried Hugh. “How are you, old timer?” 

Red Wolf dismounted and shook hands gravely. There 
was sudden silence in the crowd below. 

“Injuns of Wyoming bring the Governor greeting,” 
said the Indian. 

“Thank you, Red Wolf,” returned Hugh. “What is 
the extra horse for, Chief?” 

“For you. From Red Wolf and Eagle Wing. The 
gray stallion!” 

“The gray stallion? Why, so it is, Red Wolf!” ex¬ 
claimed Hugh. 

“Pink, he have ’im up on horse ranch he start in Big 
Fang country,” the Indian chief said gravely. 

Hugh smiled in spite of himself. “Thank you for 
bringing him, Red Wolf,” he exclaimed, casting as he did 
an interesting eye toward the listening crowd. Pink, he 
supposed, was somewhere in the throng. 

His supposition was entirely correct. There was a com¬ 
motion at the bottom of the steps and Pink, pursued by 
Fred Allward in a miner’s garb, puffed up the steps. Pink 
had lost his head. He made a lunge at the Indian. Red 
Wolf, resplendent in chief’s robe and war bonnet, did not 
move a muscle. Hugh caught Pink by the throat and 
forced him to stand quietly before him. 

“Don’t you dare to start anything here, Pink!” he said. 

“Go on, Governor!” cried a voice from the crowd. 
“You don’t need to be afraid of anything he can say!” 

“He sure is afraid!” called some one else. “Pink has 
a grudge because Stewart’s his son-in-law and don’t live 
with his wife.” 

Hisses drowned the voice. Red Wolf looked contemp¬ 
tuously at Pink. 

“Let ’em speak, Hughie,” said the Indian. “He no can 
hurt you or me.” 


THE OLD RANCH 


325 

Hugh slowly released his hold on his father-in-law’s 
throat. Pink straightened himself, rubbed his throat and 
turned toward the now altogether enthralled crowd. He 
looked the very perfect picture of a fat, good-natured 
cowman. 

“I ain’t a public speaker!” exclaimed Pink, “but I guess 
I can prove to you that that stallion is mine.” 

“Is it the real, original gray stallion?” asked some¬ 
body. 

“Yes, it is,” replied Pink, glancing at the beautiful 
plunging brute. “I found it running the plains last spring. 
It was a wild horse. I brought it in and put it in my 
corral. That same night it disappeared. Either the 
Governor or this Injun’s son had taken it.” 

“That’s a heap lie!” exclaimed Red Wolf. “Stallion 
in Billy Chamberlain’s old adobe three days. Then my 
boy, he follow Pink while Pink he take ’em stallion one 
night up to old Stone Devil’s Cave. He wait long time 
to see what Pink do there. My boy afraid go in Stone 
Devil’s Cave. Pink get away with stallion, my son 
lose ’em.” 

“That’s a lie!” roared Pink. “I never saw the stallion 
till I found it in the Dinosaur Cave and took it up to my 
ranch.” 

“Shut up, Pink, and let the Injun finish!” said several 
voices. 

“What made you think the stallion was yours, Red 
Wolf? Tell the crowd,” cried Fred Allward. 

“I rope ’em up in Wild Horse country beyond Big 
Fang. I bring ’em down. I meet Hughie. He help me. 
Down by bridge they drink, all my wild horses, about one 
hundred and forty. Fred Allward, he learning run air¬ 
plane, he run airplane into my wild horses. Kill heap 
many. Stampede rest. Hughie, he have fight with gray 


326 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

stallion, rope ’em, tie ’em to bridge, tell Pink Morgan take 
care of ’em.” 

“That’s right!” shouted Fred Allward. “That airplane 
did some battling among them horses!” 

The crowd roared and applauded. “Looks like this 
was a foolish move on your part, Pink,” grinned Fred. 

Pink stood, the picture of martyrdom, until the applause 
died down. Then he said, firmly: 

“I found that horse, a wild horse, running free on the 
flats across from Fort Sioux. I took him up to my ranch 
and broke him. A week ago this Injun came up there 
and attacked me and scalped me!” 

A gasp went through the audience. All its restless, 
colorful movement was stilled as Pink took off his cap 
and, wincing as he did so, tore away the bandage on the 
top of his head. The wound was like a dull red disk. 

Indian hate still lives in our frontier states. Many a 
man and woman in that audience had lived through hor¬ 
rors of Indian warfare of which the mark on Pink’s head 
was the sign manual. Pink Morgan was more or less of 
a joke, but the scalp mark on his head brought tragedy 
to the memory of every pioneer who saw it. 

A murmur rose. Hugh looked quickly at Red Wolf. 
The old chief stood silent, unafraid. 

“You’d better go, Red Wolf,” Hugh said to him 
quietly. “Take your horse straight through the Capitol 
to the rear door.” 

Red Wolf grunted. “No will do.” He suddenly shot 
a bronze palm upward and outward, a gesture of such 
power and dignity that the murmur ceased. 

“Red Wolf, he took the scalp lock,” he said in a voice 
that carried to the outer edge of the crowd where the 
school children in the old yellow stage-coaches hung from 
the windows in precarious attitudes of absorbed attention. 


THE OLD RANCH 327 

“Red Wolf he took scalp lock. Pink long ago take my 
ranch. Pink, he smash up Stone Devil for Hughie here. 
Hughie, he my friend, best friend. Pink, he hurt Hughie 
here,” laying a bronze hand on Hughie’s heart. “Hughie, 
he never lie, he never break promise. Pink, he heap 
crooked. Red Wolf, he take scalp lock.” 

He paused and for a full moment there was silence, 
with the brilliant winter sunlight glowing over the multi¬ 
colored crowd and centering on the old Sioux’s marvelous 
beaded tunic, the high spot in all that vivid scene. 

Pink broke the silence. “Well, do I get the stallion or 
don’t I? Do I get this Injun jailed, or don’t I?” 

“You’ll get neither,” said Hugh in a calm voice. “Red 
Wolf keeps the stallion. Indian or no Indian, he’s a 
thoroughbred. Am I not right?” appealing with a smile 
to the listening throng. 

Johnny Parnell, in the whitest angora chaps and the 
most vivid blue handkerchief ever seen in Cheyenne, 
jingled up the steps. 

“Look here, folks, looks like Pink has made you jury 
on this case. I want to tell you that I know personally 
that every word the Sioux says is true. The reason I 
know is that for a little while I played around with Pink 
Morgan at the game he was putting over. Till I saw a 
great light and undertook to help make this man’s man 
the Governor. Now, my advice to Pink is, don’t start 
anything with Hugh Stewart. He ain’t a nice boy when 
he gets mad. The Eastern Electric Corporation got him 
mad and he stopped digging fossils long enough to make 
himself Governor so’s he could tend to their case properly. 

“Hughie Stewart thought more of that Old Sioux Tract 
than he did of anything else on earth. He gave up more 
than any of you imagine to save it, for a national fossil 
field. And yet, when he got out of his boneyards into 


328 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

human living and found out what the Children’s Code 
meant, he told Charley Whitson he could have the Thumb 
Butte site, if he’d give Wyoming the Code. 

'‘And that’s the man this here little Pink Morgan has 
tried to injure.” 

A roar went up from the crowd. Johnny shook his 
head and the crowd caught breath and listened. 

Johnny went on: “I have a suggestion. Pink, he 
values that scalp lock awful high. As you see, he ain’t 
got any hair to spare. So I say, let Red Wolf return 
that scalp lock and let Hughie keep the gray stallion, and 
let Pink be thankful I ain’t told everything I know about 
him and me.” 

For the first time during the scene Red Wolf’s sense 
of humor gleamed in his eyes. While the audience rocked 
with laughter, he detached from his belt a tiny lock of hair 
and handed it to Johnny. Johnny, with a broad grin, 
offered it to Pink, and Pink suddenly bolted across the 
portico into the building. 

“Mount the gray stallion, Governor!” shouted a voice. 

Hugh turned an inquiring eye on Red Wolf, who 
nodded and said, his eyes still twinkling, “Pink, he broke 
him heap good.” 

Hugh sprang into the saddle and amidst the thunder of 
applause rode the prancing stallion down the steps. And 
the much belated parade began. 

The day dragged on for Hugh through function after 
function. He was confused and conscious of a sense of 
loneliness that he never had experienced in the most 
isolated spot where his fossil prospecting had taken him. 
This then was that political life for which those nearest 
him considered him so preeminently well fitted! He 
groaned in spirit. 

At every moment when something more formal was not 


THE OLD RANCH 329 

being pressed upon him, the politicians of both parties 
were waiting on him with requests for a share in the 
spoils. These requests bewildered and puzzled Hugh. 

“Mrs. Ellis,” he asked during an unexpected lull, “am 
I under obligations to everybody in the state? Isn’t there 
any one with whom I break even ?” 

^ mother of the Code chuckled, then said, seriously, 
You owe nothing. You w^ent in absolutely without obli¬ 
gations except as to the Sioux Tract and the Children’s 
Code. You’ve canceled those debts. If I were you, I’d 
give nothing to any one until you have been in office long 
enough to know what you want for Wyoming.” 

“Then I’ll see no more of them today,” Hugh’s voice 
expressed relief. 

Except Charley Whitson. I promised him I’d arrange 
for you to see him before the ball tonight.” 

“What does he want?” asked Hugh. 

I don’t know. But we’ll need him for the Code.” 

Hugh smiled. “You’re more loyal to the Code than 
I’ve been to my dinosaurs.” 

Mrs. Ellis laid a plump hand on his arm. “You’ve 
helped me to be so, my dear. I shall never forget it. 
Here comes Johnny. I’m sorry for you, Hughie,” she 
laughed and slipped away. 

Lonely and sad the day was, yes, and yet Hugh arrived 
at the Governor’s mansion for the hour’s rest permitted 
him by the ferocious Johnny, with a curious feeling of 
satisfaction. There was something gratifying in realizing 
that the people of Wyoming believed he would lead them 
into that nebulous, elusive finer life that the lowliest and 
the worst of us longs for and seldom achieves. Only in 
certain restricted directions could Hugh open a trail for 
them, he knew. But, he told himself after the day of 
adulation, he would take a keen pride in doing all that lay 
within him. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 

M RS. ELLIS and Principal Jones were in the drawing 
room, waiting to talk over the day with Hugh and 
Johnny. 

Johnny was apparently more interested in the return of 
the gray stallion than in any other event. 

“If I’d tried to stage anything like that, it sure would 
have failed,” he said, taking a turn up and down the par¬ 
lor. “It was the big hit of the day, after your speech, 
Governor. But, say, Pink is some mad cowman. Every¬ 
body has hazed him today. Poor old fat man. Mrs. 
Morgan and Jessie both have turned against him, and now 
the Sioux Injun has stolen back the gray stallion!” 

“Pink has turned mean,” Principal Jones laid down a 
report of Hugh’s speech in the evening paper. 

“He’s harmless!” grunted Hugh. 

“Harmless?” Mrs. Ellis raised her eyebrows. “Strikes 
me he was the little slide that finally started the whole 
avalanche. He’ll still bear watching.” 

Before LIugh could reply, the doorman announced a 
visitor and old Charley Whitson came in, accompanied 
by Charles Grafton, the representative of the Eastern 
Electric Corporation. 

Whitson was exceedingly businesslike. “Just two 
points, Governor, that I wanted to settle at once. First, 
that speech of yours today and the reception it got. That 
means just one thing, sir. You are booked for Wash¬ 
ington.” 


33 o 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 331 

Hugh rose. “No!” he exclaimed, with all the earnest¬ 
ness at his command. 

Whitson smiled. “Yes, Your Excellency!” 

“Mr. Whitson!” exclaimed Mrs. Ellis, “really I don't 
see where you come in on that!” 

The two old warriors looked at each other appraisingly. 
“Mrs. Ellis,” smiled Whitson, “I come in on the Chil¬ 
dren's Code, and also, thanks to the Governor, on the 
Thumb Butte dam.” He suddenly grew serious. “Madam, 
I have hungered all my life for Wyoming to produce a 
national possibility. By God, this state is going to ride 
into Washington on a Gray Stallion!” 

“Mrs. Ellis is the big figure in Wyoming,” Hugh’s 
voice was arresting. “Don’t mistake some trick of per¬ 
sonality of which I seem to be the unfortunate possessor 
for anything but what it is.” 

“Mrs. Ellis could do nothing with the Children’s Code 
until you came into the running,” said Whitson brusquely. 

“I’ve been valuable to Wyoming,” Hugh said, “because 
of a peculiar set of circumstances. When I’ve settled the 
problems connected with these, I want to return to private 
life.” 

“You haven’t a chance in the world,” grunted Whitson. 
“I have come to you tonight to tell you that. And to tell 
you that I would be glad to whip the Children’s Code 
through both houses for you. In short, I am asking to 
climb aboard the bandwagon.” 

Suddenly Hugh began to laugh. Mrs. Ellis joined him. 
Johnny Parnell let out a great roar. A moment later 
every one in the room was rocking with amusement. 

Mrs. Ellis was the first to recover. “If the Governor 
will permit me,” she said, “I’ll accept your offer, Mr. 
Whitson.” 

“The Governor,” chuckled Hugh, “is only too glad to 


332 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

give up a job he knows nothing about. Mr. Grafton, 
what can I do for you?” 

Grafton, who had been a deeply interested spectator, 
bowed formally. '‘Governor, we are going to begin work 
on the dam at once. Next week we set off the first blast. 
So much history has been written around Thumb Butte 
that we want to make a real occasion of beginning the 
work. We want you to come to Fort Sioux and press 
the electric button that sets off that first blast.” 

There was a moment’s silence. Then Hugh said, 
brusquely, “Where will that first blast be set?” 

“In the cave, across the river from the Butte. It’s the 
picturesque point from which to fire the first shot.” 

Silence again, with all eyes on Hugh. He stood, tall 
and slender, his eyes looking beyond the luxurious room, 
beyond the city in its holiday trappings, beyond the snow- 
swept plains to the cave, the cave where Bookie had left 
the body of Jimmie Duncan, where he had passed the most 
perfect hours of his working life, where he had taken 
Miriam into the secret place of his ambitions, the cave 
that was the burial place of the great triceratops. 

A seemingly small and not unusual thing to ask of the 
Governor of a state. Yet all Hugh’s nature rose in revolt 
against granting the request. And yet again, so violent 
was his feeling that he dared not refuse. He had a sudden 
realization that this moment was the ultimate acid test of 
the sincerity of his decision made only a week before 
in the Dinosaur Cave. 

He turned his back and walked toward the window. 
Only Johnny Parnell saw him twist his long hands to¬ 
gether in a gesture of inexpressible pain. Johnny 
scowled fiercely at Grafton, who would have gone on 
eagerly with his explanation of the engineering problems 
connected with the opening of the work. Hugh walked 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 333 

to the window, and slowly returned to Grafton. His face 
was deep-lined, but his voice firm. 

“Very well, Mr. Grafton. Let Parnell know the de¬ 
tails.” Then he turned to Whitson. “Will you excuse 
me from any further discussion just now, Whitson?” 

“Sure! I guess I’ve gone on record clearly enough to 
offset any other siren calls you may hear tonight. I’ll see 
you all later at the ball. All set, Grafton?” 

Grafton shook hands with Hugh and followed Whitson 
out of the room. Hugh turned to his three friends. 

“Do you all think I must go on and on with this?” 
waving his hand at the rich trappings of the parlor. “Do 
you think for a moment that the Gray Stallion, bred in 
the plains, would be anything but a saddle horse for some 
one else to ride, in Washington?” He stopped, with a 
look of bitterness that moved them all. 

Mrs. Ellis cleared her throat. She too dared not at this 
moment temporize. “I think we all agree, Hughie, that 
your days as a private citizen are over!” 

Hugh looked from one to another. “You, too, Johnny?” 
he asked. 

Johnny Parnell answered huskily but with the same 
sense that the situation must be met squarely. “I agree, 
Pm afraid, Governor.” 

Hugh moved slowly toward the door. “Pll see you all 
at dinner,” he said. 

But in his room he did not begin at once on his toilet. 
He paced the floor for some moments. Then he went to 
the telephone and put in a long-distance call. He had 
finished dressing when the operator called him to the 
instrument. 

“Is this you, Jessie?” 

“Yes, Hughie.” 

“Jessie, something that you said in our last talk to- 


334 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

gether has given me courage to ask you to do something 
for me. Will you come up to Cheyenne as quickly as you 
can and let me ask you some questions?” 

“Yes, Hughie. You are not in trouble, are you?” 

“Pm not in trouble, but, Jessie, I’m deeply troubled. 
I’m not sure that you can help me. I’m very sure that 
I have no right to bother you.” 

“I’ll be along, Hughie. Perhaps I can catch the flyer. 
I’m in Fort Sioux tonight.” 

Hugh heard her receiver click. He hung up his own 
instrument and went downstairs to join the others. 

Six hours later Hugh was standing in the ballroom, 
listening, with an absent eye, to an eager lady who wanted 
to be made commissioner of education, when an attendant 
whispered to him, “Mrs. Stewart is in the little reception 
room behind you, Governor.” 

Hugh abruptly excused himself to the importunate 
voter and strode into the little room, closing and locking 
the door behind him. Jessie was standing under the chan¬ 
delier in her beaver coat and hat, a little pale, violet eyes 
steady. 

“Take off your wraps, Jessie,” said Hugh. 

He dropped her coat on a chair, then stood before her. 
“Jessie, do you know that they want to get me into 
national politics?” 

Jessie nodded. 

“And did you know that they were to ask me to touch 
off the dynamite that next week will destroy the Dinosaur 
Cave?” 

“No!” quickly. “I didn’t know that! Of course, it’s 
impossible.” 

“Impossible?” repeated Hugh. “But I’ve consented. 
I dared not refuse.” 

Suddenly Jessie’s wide eyes deepened with tears. “O 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 335 

no! Hughie, not that! You mustn’t demand that of 
yourself.” 

Hugh stared at her as though he would probe to her 
very soul. But he did not speak, and Jessie went on: 

Not that! Give them the Children’s Code. Give them 
whatever you peculiarly can give them. Then go back to 
your dinosaurs.” 

“That, Jessie!” gasped Hugh. “That! from you!” 

But Jessie was not heeding him. “You have crucified 
yourself enough for all of us, Uncle Bookie, mother, Mrs. 
Ellis, Johnny Parnell. They are an ambitious crowd and 
they set no limits. They love you, but they have no idea 
of what it’s costing you. Give them this term, Hughie, 
then go back to your marvelous past.” 

She paused, but Hugh could not phrase what welled up 
within him. She misinterpreted his silence, and lifted her 
coat. “If I’ve answered all your questions, Hughie, I’ll 
be going. I must be back at the ranch tomorrow.” 

Hugh took the coat from her and again tossed it to the 
chair. “Jessie! Jessie! For God’s sake give me truth, 
utter and absolute. Why, after all the years of contempt 
for my work, do you answer me so?” 

Very white now, Jessie returned his look. “Because,” 
she replied carefully, “I have suffered for two years as 
only a woman who can love as I can, is able to suffer. 
Because, suffering so, I made myself learn where it was 
I had failed. Part of my way of learning was to get your 
point of view about your work. Once I got it, I realized 
how I had tortured you, how I had deliberately turned you 
to Miriam Page—I tried to take my medicine, standing.— 
You must do for Wyoming whatever you alone can do. 
At all other times, keep to your own work.” 

Again she lifted her coat. Plugh put a restraining hand 
on her shoulder. 


336 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Wait, Jessie! Do you know that in all my world, you 
are the only one that would answer me so. And do you 
know, that in spite of the people who have broken faith 
with me, I believe that you believe what you say. You 
always have been an absolutely honest human being.” 

“Yes,” said Jessie, slowly, “I have been that, at least.” 

“Do you know what your attitude means to me ? Look, 
Jessie, I am down to bedrock. All the superstructure of 
my life has been swept away. All my old feeling about 
people, all my old contacts with them, all my old philosophy 
of life, gone! Bookie, Miriam, Mrs. Ellis, Johnny, with 
their one unescapable demand on me. A demand to which 
I responded. But the loneliness of it! The bleakness of 
it! I can’t stick it, without some one to understand.” 

He moistened his lips and went on. 

“It was my work that separated us, Jessie. Will you let 
it be my work that brings us together again? Your faith 
in it and its import? In all the world, only you. Jessie, 
I am swept clean. All I have to offer you is my admira¬ 
tion for what you’ve grown to be and my complete trust 
in you, and my terrible spiritual need of your sympathy. 
If this seems to you too selfish, let it go. But if in the 
bigness of your nature, you can take me in, as you would 
a lonely little boy who—who is trying to adjust himself 
to his first terrible awakening to what life really is-” 

Hugh’s voice broke. Jessie’s eyes deepened to a tender¬ 
ness that lifted her whole face to extraordinary beauty. 
For a moment she stood thus. 

Then, her very lips white, she slowly shook her head. 

“No, Hughie. I learn slowly. But I learn surely. I 
dare not come back to you caring for you as I do, unless 
I can believe that love is dawning within you. I had 
thought that if only you would take me into your arms 
again, I could win you. I don’t want to win you, I know 



RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 337 

now, Hughie. I can’t be satisfied with you merely need¬ 
ing me. You must love me.” 

“Jessie! Jessie! Do you mean that you shall go on 
with the application for divorce?” 

“It’s fair, isn’t it, Hughie?” 

“Fair! Great heavens, yes. I’m not asking fairness 
of you. That would give me nothing.” 

Jessie threw her coat over her arm now and walked 
firmly to the door. There she stood for a moment, head 
bowed, Hugh watching her with his whole soul concen¬ 
trated on the effort to read her mind. But he could not 
know what force it was within her that caused her to raise 
her head and, her violet eyes, black with feeling, say to 
him: 

“Let’s end it, Hughie. You don’t know what love is. 
You never will until you can forget yourself. Perhaps 
it’s not in you to know the big thing. That’s not strange. 
It comes to few people.” 

She unlocked the door and went away. 

Hugh stood as she had left him until a man who wanted 
to help swing the Children’s Code found him. 

That night, when the new Governor of the state went 
to bed, he might well have been thinking of the really 
great day he had just experienced. A man of any other 
temperament than Hugh’s might well have felt that he and 
not the day were great! But Hugh lay for the long hour 
before sleep released him, pondering over Jessie’s last 
statement. 

He wondered if she were right. 

Surely he once had loved Jessie. Surely the love he had 
had for Miriam was deep and sincere. Yes, Jessie her¬ 
self had granted both those facts. What did she mean 
by great love? 


338 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

Staring into the darkness, Hugh acknowledged to him¬ 
self that he did not know. 

Perhaps, as Jessie suggested, it was not within him to 
know. What was the acid test? What was the touch¬ 
stone? Self-forgetfulness, Jessie had said. 

What was there left to sacrifice ? He had stripped him¬ 
self to the very foundations of his nature, he told himself. 
For Bookie, for Mrs. Ellis, for Wyoming. But what had 
he sacrificed for love ? 

Nothing. Nothing to Jessie. Nothing to Miriam. 

Hugh tossed his arms above his head and groaned. 
Why pursue the struggle? He had nothing left to give. 
If he was not to know the great thing of which Jessie 
spoke so surely and so yearningly, he could go on without 
it, living as best he might from day to day, alone. 

Alone. Aye, there was the point that probed deepest. 
Hugh knew now that he was not of the stuff that could 
live on alone, stripped of his profession, and of the fulfill¬ 
ment of that racial yearning that had been slowly rousing 
in him during the year’s struggle with the Children’s Code. 
He must have one or the other. 

Forgetfulness of self, Jessie had said. And here he lay, 
his whole mind turned passionately inward! Self! Self! 
God help him, he would forget himself henceforward! 
And with what infinite pleasure could he leave behind that 
restless, yearning, flagellating entity he knew as self. He 
would become absorbed completely in the new duties. 
With this determination he fell asleep. 

A week later Johnny Parnell, smoking a meditative 
cigarette in the Governor’s private office, while he watched 
Hugh sign letters, said in what he considered was a con¬ 
fidential tone: 

“Governor, what are we going to do with Pink?” 

“Pink? What’s he up to now, Johnny?” 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 339 

“O he’s hanging round Cheyenne, talking. We’ve got 
to shut his gab, if for no other reason than he’s Jessie’s 
father. And while I ain’t what you’d call fond of Mrs. 
Morgan as a model of what the novels call a delectable 
female, still I’ve got an awful lot of respect for her as a 
politician. It ain’t right, after the big game she played 
for us, to let him go on sort of making himself the laugh¬ 
ing stock of the state.” 

“I agree with you, Johnny. What is the old fool’s 
idea?” 

“I don’t know as he has one, Hughie. He’s drinking 
a lot and whisky always made him ugly. But he’s got 
something worse the matter with him than alcohol. I 
think he’s gone a little loco. Just enough to make him 
dangerous.” 

“Dangerous! Look here, old timer, I’ve known Pink 
ever since I was born. He isn’t dangerous to any one but 
himself.” 

“He tried to shoot old Red Wolf, didn’t he?” 

“Yes, and he certainly got punished for it.” Hugh 
began to chuckle as he again recalled Fred’s story of the 
now famous battle of the scalp lock. 

Johnny’s guffaw shook the windows, but he sobered 
quickly to say, “Hughie, we’ve got to hobble him, some¬ 
how.” 

“I’m waiting for you to tell me just what he’s up to, 
Johnny.” Hugh rose to light his pipe and lean against 
the window frame, in the familiar attitude of The Lariat. 

“Well, according to all that’s told me, and I’m getting 
it straight enough, he’s turned chiefly against Jessie. He 
merely says of you that he’ll get you some day. And I 
haven’t a doubt in the world that when he gets enough 
raisin-jack aboard some day, he’ll come up here and take 
a pot shot at you.” 


340 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“O well/’ grunted Hugh, “that’s the least of my trou¬ 
bles. I was brought up with so-called bad men. They are 
all cowards.” 

“Yes, they sure are, and a coward’s always dangerous. 
Because you can’t count on ’em. I’d rather ride a horse 
that’ll tackle any jump in sight than one that shies at a leaf 
on the trail. One’s only foolish, the other one will throw 
you when you least expect it.” 

Hugh nodded, then said with an unexpected grimness 
of tone, “What’s he got against Jessie?” 

Johnny’s good-natured face stiffened. “I don’t like to 
talk about the hound, I hate him so.” 

“Hate him! Why, Johnny, you don’t know what hate 
is. When you consider what that mud puppy has done 
to me in the last two years, you may begin to realize 
what I feel toward him. He’s—he’s something unclean 
in my life.” There was a pause. Then Hugh cleared his 
throat and repeated, “What’s he got against Jessie?” 

“Some of the bums that hang around Mexico Pete’s 
poolroom gave him a jab about Jessie’s not divorcing you 
because of your affair with Miriam Page.” 

“Affair!” ejaculated Hugh. “Wait a moment, Johnny. 
That was not an ‘affair’ as one ordinarily uses that phrase.” 

Johnny’s eyes widened. He said rather pleadingly: 
“Look here, Governor, as I look at it, that’s all over and 
done with. We may have to do a little mopping up because 
of it, but let’s you and me never discuss the right and 
wrong of it.” 

“I don’t intend to. I shan’t even mention it to any one 
but you, but you are my friend. Jessie had no grounds 
for divorce.” He looked Johnny clearly in the eye. 

Johnny returned the look. Then he said, “Well, there 
ain’t any other man in the world whose word I’d take. 
But I believe you, old timer. You know, though, don’t 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 341 

you, that I’m the only person in the state that would 
believe you?” 

“Jessie and Mrs. Ellis know,” contradicted Hugh. “Go 
on w r ith your story, Johnny.” 

“Well, when Pink got this jab, he began to clear his 
skirts by telling a wild story. He said when he found 
out about Miss Page, he knocked you down and that Jessie 
interfered and took your side. And he said he tried again 
and again to get Jessie to leave you, but that she’s hung 
on your neck no matter what you’ve done to her. That 
was his first story, the night of the ball. He’s been drunk 
most of the time since and naturally the story has grown.” 

“Grown to what?” asked Hugh grimly. 

“I don’t know for sure. I heard so many rumors that 
I told Fred All ward to have a talk with Mexico Pete. 
Fred didn’t turn up this morning, but I thought I had 
enough facts to go ahead on.” 

“I should judge so,” agreed Hugh, with a hard gleam 
in his deep-set eyes. “I suppose you have a suggestion to 
make.” 

“Yes, I have. We can’t kill him, seeing what your posi¬ 
tion is. We’ll have to buy him. Give him what he 
wants.” 

“I told you that I hated him,” exclaimed Hugh. “I 
don’t know what he wants, but I wouldn’t give it to him 
to save his life.” 

“But we ain’t talking about your feelings,” said Johnny, 
laconically, “nor about mine. We’re talking about Jessie.” 

PI ugh flushed painfully. Self again! Even Johnny felt 
it. “I guess I deserved that, Johnny,” he said. “Never¬ 
theless, I don’t see what your idea is.” 

“I mean you can’t punish him because he’s your father- 
in-law. Give him his horse ranch. Bribe him.” 

“But he has his horse ranch.” 


342 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“No, he hasn’t. The Mormons have it. He borrowed 
from them while he was waiting for these here sure-fire 
payments from the Eastern Electric Corporation. And 
as it was a private arrangement between him and Miriam 
Page, it isn’t ever coming through. Grafton just laughs 
at him.” 

Hugh stared at Johnny for so long that that much-tried 
cowman was greatly relieved when the Governor’s secre¬ 
tary announced Fred All ward. 

To say that Fred strutted would be unfair. But the 
little miner certainly had adopted an air of conscious 
power that sat with remarkable effect upon him. He wore 
a celluloid collar above a blue flannel shirt and a black suit 
that he had bought in Denver twenty-five years before. 
It had traveled many miles in his bedding roll, had been 
worn but a scant dozen times and was still in good con¬ 
dition, as he pointed to Johnny, who complained that the 
suit lacked a certain style. 

“Sorry I missed you, Johnny,” said Fred, after greeting 
Hugh! “Did you want I should come here and report?” 

“Yes, if it’s all right with the Governor,” replied 
Johnny. 

“Yes, let’s get through with it,” exclaimed Hugh. 

“I had a talk with Mexico Pete. He says he can keep 
Pink out of his place, but what’s the use? He’d just hang 
out somewhere else. And Pete says he is a drawing card 
because he’s related to the Governor.” 

“Did Pete’s story check up with what you had?” asked 
Johnny. 

Fred looked at Hugh. “Well, you see, it’s kind of 
worse. Those bums at Pete’s, they think it’s fun to roast 
him, and last night he said Jess, she wasn’t his daughter 
at all. Belonged to Mrs. Morgan. No daughter of his 
could follow a man that had done what Hughie’s done.” 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 343 

“God knows, I wish she wasn’t his daughter!” shouted 
Johnny, jumping to his feet. “It’s no use. I’ve got to go 
and kill that hound!” 

Hugh put his hand on Johnny’s arm. “Wait, Johnny! 
Wait r 

“I ain’t going to wait. I love Jessie Morgan in the way 
a cold-blooded guy like you can’t dream of.” 

“She’s my wife, Parnell,” said Hugh sternly, wonder¬ 
ing with a sudden deep pang how soon Jessie would begin 
divorce proceedings against him. 

“Lots of good that’s done her! Let go of me, Hughie!” 
cried Johnny. 

“Wait!” thundered Hugh. 

Johnny sulkily subsided. “You should let me tend to 
Pink,” he muttered, “and you should bring Jessie here to 
live.” 

“Don’t you suppose I’ve tried to get her to come?” 
demanded Hugh. 

“And she refused?” Johnny’s sulks turned to surprise. 

“Yes, she did.” 

“Well, I pass!” groaned Johnny. 

“Ought to be like me,” interpolated Fred with his 
superior air. “Let ’em alone.” 

Hugh walked back and forth for a moment. Then he 
said, “Can Pink be frightened into keeping his mouth shut 
until I’ve given this matter a few days’ thought? I’m too 
angry now to make plans. I’ll not bribe him, Johnny.” 

“Mrs. Morgan can make him shut up,” suggested Fred. 

“Good heavens, Fred ! I don’t want her to have a word 
of this, if we can help it,” exclaimed Hugh. 

“All right, if you’re so finicky, I’ll take care of him for 
a few days. Me and Red Wolf will take him prospecting 
or some such. How long do you want, Governor?” 
grunted Fred. 


344 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Only until Saturday. Then deliver him to me* here. 
And the Lord give me strength to keep my hands off him! 
You fellows will have to get out now and leave me to the 
rest of my appointments/’ and shortly Hugh, with a 
curious uneasiness in the background of his mind, w 7 as 
immersed in the day’s heavy business. 

Mrs. Ellis came in late in the afternoon. She was look¬ 
ing troubled. “Hughie, Charley Whitson has just been 
with me. I don’t know who is at work, but he is con¬ 
vinced that you are not in full good faith about the Thumb 
Butte-Children’s Code swap. He acknowledged that the 
deeds have been drawn for the sale to the Eastern Electric 
Corporation, but he says the air is full of rumors about 
our crowd double-crossing them—that you won’t appear 
to fire the blast at the opening ceremonies on Friday—that 
the property isn’t yours to deliver and that Jessie is work¬ 
ing up some sort of a spectacular injunction proceeding 
and a lot more things that I told him a man of his experi¬ 
ence ought to be ashamed to repeat.” 

Hugh laid down his pen in deep exasperation. “How 
can he be such a fool! There is no way I could double- 
cross him even if I wanted.” 

Mrs. Ellis smiled. “O there are ways, as he very well 
knows. Only, knowing you, he ought to realize they’ll 
never be used. The only thing that bothers me is the fear 
that at the last moment your resolution will fail you and 
you won’t appear to fire that blast on Friday. Hughie, 
a whole mountain of political consequences rests on that 
very simple request of Grafton’s. It’s your final evidence 
that you and Whitson are doing teamwork. It’s— Oh, 
it’s all sorts of things that I can’t bother you about.” 

“I’ll be there,” said Hugh. 

Mrs. Ellis eyed him, then gave a sigh of relief. “Whit¬ 
son is a fool,” she said, and went out. 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 345 

Hugh went down to Fort Sioux on Thursday after¬ 
noon. He wanted to sleep in The Lariat. He wanted to 
be alone. He wanted to go quietly to the Dinosaur Cave, 
if that were possible, and say good-by to it, before the 
blast was set. And he wanted to see Jessie. But he had 
resolved not to go near her. For he knew that the desire 
to see her was based on his craving for her sympathy in 
this hard circumstance which had been forced upon him. 

The ceremonies were set for noon on Friday. Fossil 
had not been sent to Cheyenne as yet. Hugh gave Thurs¬ 
day afternoon and early evening to his solitary ride up to 
the cave. A good trail had been worked out clean from 
the river to the plains above the cave. Men were at work 
on it still, but the cave was in quiet readiness for the 
devastating blast. A watchman allowed Hugh to enter. 

Hugh was alone in the dim interior for a long hour. 
When he came out his quiet face gave no indication to 
the curious eyes of the watchman as to what he may have 
seen or thought during that period. 

“Pretty cold in there, Governor,” he said, as Hugh 
stood in the door, pulling his beaver cap over his ears. 

“Not so cold as it is outdoors,” replied Hugh. 

“I suppose you knew them old walls pretty well, Gov¬ 
ernor. Folks tell lots of stories about how fond you was 
of that stone bird you got out of here.” 

“I was pretty fond of it,” agreed Hugh. 

“Kind of tough having to blow her up yourself,” the 
man spoke, with a sudden sympathy, as he warmed toward 
the subtle thing in Hugh that drew men. 

Hugh smiled at the watchman. “Thanks, old man. 
But I guess we’ll have to put her through.” 

“Sure! We’ll put her through! Twelve o’clock sharp 

tomorrow.” 

“Twelve o’clock,” repeated Hugh, “I’ll be here. Good- 
by, old man.” 


346 THE EXILE OF, THE LARIAT 

“Good-by, Governor! Kind of tough, by heck!” and 
he shook his head as Hugh started down the trail. 

He slept alone that night in The Lariat, his mind full 
of half tender, half whimsical memories of Uncle Bookie, 
forcing himself to forget the many hard hours of his exile 
within these familiar walls. The river roared its old fero¬ 
cious song without the window. The little stove showed 
a sleepless red eye that was the very acme of comfort. 
And Hugh slept from midnight to early dawn, without 
a dream. 

At dawn Hugh was awakened by a creaking of the rear 
window. He did not move as the bulky form of Pink 
Morgan appeared dimly over the sill. He heaved himself 
awkwardly into the room; swayed for a second, then fell 
to the floor. Pink was very drunk. 

Hugh got up, closed the window and dressed himself 
while Pink lay watching him, a look of hate growing more 
and more apparent in his bleared eyes as dawn glorified 
the room. 

When Hugh had finished his toilet, which he did always 
with a watchful eye on his visitor, he said, “Pink, where 
are Red Wolf and Fred?” 

“Thought you had me, didn’t you?” said Pink, thickly. 
“I got ’em both, and now I’m going to get you, you blank! 
Jus’ as soon as my head clears up. I’m drunk. God¬ 
awful drunk. I’m drunk all the time now. It makes me 
smart and nervy.” 

“So I see,” agreed Hugh. With a sudden deft move¬ 
ment, he jerked the gun out of Pink’s belt and dropped 
it into his own pocket. 

Pink rolled heavily to his knees, then with unexpected 
quickness he hurled himself up against Hugh and caught 
him round the neck. 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 347 

“HI get you anyhow, you-” He called Hugh by an 

unrepeatable name. 

Hugh would have killed him had not the thought of 
Jessie been burning in his mind. He fought a desperate 
battle with the drunken man, but he did not draw the gun. 
He was all but exhausted when finally Pink lay again on 
the floor, this time with a twist of Bookie’s lariat around 
his ankles and wrists. 

Pink glared up at him malevolently. “Pm still drunk,” 
he said warningly. 

Hugh, panting, crouched over him. “I’d kill you, if it 
wasn’t for Jessie,” he muttered. 

“Jessie!” sneered Pink. “You’d ought to been with 
Jessie last night, like a regular husband. She’s no girl of 
mine. So I fixed her, too! Cut her telephone wires last 
night. Told you I was smart when I was drunk. Nervy, 
too.” 

Red spots began to dance before Hugh’s eyes. 

“What did you do to Jessie, you hound?” he panted. 

“What business is it of yours? You ain’t been her 
husband for years. I fixed it so she won’t hang round 
your neck no more.” 

Hugh jerked out the gun, stood for a moment hesitat¬ 
ing while the ugly leer in Pink’s eyes never wavered. 
Then he dropped the weapon back in his pocket, his jaw 
long and white. He stooped and trussed Pink up with 
the lariat till he roared with pain, then jerking on his over¬ 
coat and cap, he ran for the hotel. Here he tried vainly 
to telephone the ranch. His efforts wakened Marten, 
who was now taking Pink’s place in the management of 
the hotel. 

“How long would it take you to tune up the Dinosaur?” 
demanded Hugh. 

“Two or three hours!” returned Marten. 



348 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

“Help me saddle Fossil, then. Pink’s over in The 
Lariat. Tied up. He’s drunk. Attacked me. I’ve got 
his gun. Told me he’d got Fred and Red Wolf. And 
last night, he said, he’d got Jessie! Pm going up to the 
ranch. She was there, as far as you know, last night? 
And alone?” 

“Yes, she phoned me last night about eight. Was O. K. 
then. But not alone. Li Wing was there. Everybody 
else is in town for the opening ceremonies. Better let 
me call some one else and HI go with you, Governor.” 

“No! I don’t want a word of this to get out if it can 
be helped. Jessie has been humiliated enough. I’m going 
up there. You keep Pink in The Lariat. Get Doc Olson 
at work on him and see if you can get details about Red 
Wolf and Fred. But let no one else see him.” 

“Yes, Governor,” said Marten, his voice troubled. 

“You’re sure she didn’t come in last night?” urged 
Hugh. 

“Positive. I was up till after midnight.” 

Hugh threw himself into the saddle. 

Once more the glory of the winter trail across the 
plains. It had not snowed for several days and there were 
many tracks going to and from the ranch. Hugh made 
no attempt to decipher Pink’s from among them. 

The red spots still danced before Hugh’s eyes. If Pink 
had harmed Jessie! Why, good God, Jessie was his wife! 
It was to her that the splendor of his boy’s first love had 
gone. He recalled now with thrilling vividness the mad¬ 
ness and the joy of these first few years of his marriage. 
Jessie! 

No one must hurt her. She had been hurt enough. 
What could Pink have done? Surely, surely, the vague 
horror that was shaping within him would have no proof 
in fact. Pink could not, would not have tried to shoot her. 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 349 

But Pink was drunk, shockingly drunk. His drunken¬ 
ness had been accumulating for days. He was potentially 
a madman. 

Hugh twisted his gloved hands together. 

Jessie! Indolent, care-free, indifferent no longer. 
Jessie, the strong, the self-denying; Jessie, the great lover. 
Why, to compare himself or Miriam to the human being 
Jessie had grown to be was to compare* the foothills 
around Cheyenne to the crest of Big Fang. Hugh knew 
this now. Now that it might be too late. The horror 
thickened in his heart. 

That was the longest ride Hugh ever had taken, although 
when he reached the ranch door it was only midmorning, 
and Fossil’s foreshoulders were trembling from over¬ 
exertion. 

Li Wing came to the door, blinking in the sunshine. 

“Where’s Mrs. Stewart, Li Wing?’’ cried Hugh. 

“She went Folt Sioux, last night, ’bout half-past 
eight.” 

“Let me use the telephone, will you?” asked Hugh, 
throwing himself from his horse. 

“Telephone, him blusted. Look all same wiles clut last 
night.” 

“Did you see Mrs. Stewart go, Li Wing?” 

The old Chinaman’s face began to pucker with anxiety. 

“She came dole, Li Wing in bed. Going in Folt Sioux, 
she say. That light aftel Li Wing go bed. What mlatta, 
boss?” 

“She’s not in Fort Sioux, Li Wing.” Hugh hesitated. 
But Li Wing had been Bookie’s cook in the old blessed 
days. “Her father tackled me this morning. He’s very 
drunk. He said he’d fixed Mrs. Stewart up here. He 
said he’d cut the telephone wires.” 

The old Chinaman threw up his withered hands. 


350 THE EXILE OF, THE LARIAT 

‘Is Magpie in the stable, Li Wing?” asked Hugh. 

“Yes! Yes! But him lame. She lide other pony.” 

Li Wing shuffled toward the corral, Hugh following. 
Li Wing stood beside the gate for a moment examining 
the horses munching alfalfa in the inclosure. “Jack Lab- 
bit, he gone!” 

“You mean that white mare with the long ears?” 

“Yes! Yes! Mlissis she like Jack Labbit.” 

Hugh slowly made a wide circle of the corral. On the 
far side, the south side, of the fence he made a discovery. 
A single fresh horse track led up to the fence. A little 
to the right, two horse tracks led back. Hugh returned 
grimly to the shivering Chinaman. 

“You unsaddle Fossil. I’ll take that dapple gray over 
there and follow those tracks.” 

The saddle was transferred with marvelous speed, and 
Hugh galloped out across the field where the two trails 
led toward a distant cedar grove. As he neared this grove 
Hugh saw a white horse emerge from the blue-green 
background and trot sedately toward him. The saddle 
was empty. Hugh’s heart thumped heavily against his 
ribs. He roped Jack Rabbit as he came up. A red scarf 
of Jessie’s was knotted around one stirrup. Hugh dug 
the spurs into the dapple gray and, leading Jack Rabbit, 
lunged on into the grove. 

Here there was little snow, but the heavy growth of 
trees made the going slow, and the tracks of the horses 
difficult to follow. But there was not far to go. Not ten 
minutes after he entered the grove, Hugh saw Jessie 
huddled against a tree trunk. 

He threw himself from his horse. “Jessie!” 

She smiled up at him. “Where on earth did you come 
from, Hughie?” 

“What did he do to you? Where are you hurt? How 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 351 

did he get away from you?” Hugh was kneeling beside 
her now, clasping her shoulders. 

“It was only a poor old sheep herder with the pneu¬ 
monia. About five miles up the valley. His boy came 
after me last night just as I was starting for Fort Sioux. 
He died at dawn, poor soul. That fool of a Jack Rabbit 
bolted from a wolverine in here an hour ago and brushed 
me out of the saddle. My ankle is sprained, so I couldn’t 
mount again. But where did you come from, Hughie? 
Why aren’t you at the ceremonies?” 

Hugh’s beautiful mouth was quivering. “Jessie! 
Your father attacked me this morning in The Lariat. He 
made me think he’d hurt you. Or killed you. And I came 
as fast as I could. I’ve failed you. So often, Jessie. 
But this time, I came as fast as I could.” 

Jessie looked wonderingly into his tense face. Looked 
at his quivering lips. Felt the trembling of his hands 
against her shoulders. 

“ ‘Like a little boy,’ ” she quoted suddenly. “O Hughie, 
you came to me before and I turned away from you! 
God forgive me, I didn’t understand that your love for 
me would be so ‘like a little boy’s,’ who craves, without 
understanding.” 

She lifted his shaking hands from her shoulders to 
hold them in her warm grasp. He did not seem to have 
heard what she said. 

“I thought he had killed you, Jessie. If he had hurt as 
much as a hair of your head, I would have shot him if he 
were a thousand times your father!” 

Jessie, tears brimming her eyes, gently pulled his face 
down to rest against hers. 

But he had not recovered yet from the shock that Pink 
had given him. After a morqent he lifted his head. 

“I felt when I thought he’d killed you, things that I’d 


352 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

never felt before, things I hadn’t felt when Uncle Bookie 
died, or Miriam Page. I’d have shot him and gone to 
Rawlins. I would have, Jessie. Why, good God, you 
are my wife!” 

“That wouldn’t have brought me back, Hughie, and 
it would have wrecked your career.” 

“You don’t understand. I don’t care what it would 
do to me. I’ve borne all the rest. That I could not have 
borne.” He looked at her keenly. “You are in great pain, 
Jessie?” 

“No, I’m not,” said Jessie steadily. “Hughie, what 
about the opening ceremonies? There will be a lot of 
trouble for you about this.” 

Hugh nodded. “I’ll help you to get on Jack Rabbit, 
and we’ll start for home.” 

“In just a moment! Hughie, Mrs. Ellis is going to be 
terribly upset over your not being there. It’s going to 
take a long time for you to live down what they’ll feel 
was your quitting them on this.” 

“I know all that and I’m sorry,” said Hugh. “Jessie!” 

He still was kneeling beside her. “Jessie!” looking into 
her eyes with an expression of puzzled and unutterable 
longing. “Did you say a moment ago that you’d never 
turn from me again?” 

“Yes, Hughie.” 

“Even knowing all my weaknesses and how much big¬ 
ger you have grown to be than I ?” 

Jessie smiled, and did not answer him. She still was 
holding his hands and Hugh, watching her eyes anxiously, 
saw a look of such tenderness, such loyalty swell up from 
their violet depths that he dropped his own in very 
humility. 

It was across this magic silence that there sounded a 
familiar staccato fusillade. 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 353 

“The Dinosaur!” exclaimed Jessie. “Hughie, you still 
can get to the ceremonies!” 

Hugh breathed deeply and rose, drawing Jessie care¬ 
fully upward. '‘Rest against the tree, Jessie, while I bring 
up your horse.” 

"Yes, get me into the saddle, and then hurry as fast as 
you can to Marten. Li Wing will take care of me.” 

Hugh made no response, but when Jessie was mounted 
he brought the dapple gray in beside her, swung deliber¬ 
ately into his saddle and then said: 

"We’ll take you into Fort Sioux to Doc Olson.” 

"Listen, Hughie! I don’t need the doctor. Hurry on, 
dear, please.” 

"If you don’t need the doctor, then you are well enough 
to come to the ceremonies with me.” 

The sound of the Dinosaur’s engine, which had ceased, 
suddenly began again. Jessie spurred her horse and Hugh 
following, they emerged from the grove just as the Dino¬ 
saur came to a pause not a hundred yards away. Marten 
and Li Wing ran toward them. 

"Just a sprained ankle after a fall from my horse,” 
cried Jessie. 

"One of Pink’s lies,” added Hugh, ‘'though he did cut 
the telephone wires.” 

Marten came to a stop, gulped, looked unutterable 
thoughts, dug out his watch and said, "For the love of 
heaven, get aboard. We still can make it.” 

Hugh nodded. "Li Wing, take the horses home. Mar¬ 
ten, help me get my wife aboard. Come, Jessie!” 

"Li Wing spliced the wires and telephoned over an 
hour ago,” Marten explained, as they helped Jessie into 
the plane. "Doc’s got Pink pretty well drenched out and 
I took him down to my place. Red Wolf and Fred came 
in, hell-bent, just before I got the engine going. Seems 


354 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

they wanted to see the ceremonies and were bringing Pink 
Idown by sheep wagon from Red Wolf’s camp, where 
they’d been keeping him. They were driving unbroke 
mules, some little pets of Red Wolf’s, and they ran away 
yesterday afternoon. Where or how they dropped Pink 
they don’t know. I left the three of them to argue it out.” 

Jessie looked at Hugh pitifully. “I just don’t know 
what to do about it, Hughie. I’m ashamed.” 

Suddenly Hugh chuckled. “I know what to do.” He 
turned to Li Wing. “Li Wing, you gallop back to the 
ranch and telephone to Marten’s house for Pink to meet 
me at the ceremonies. Understand?” 

Li Wing nodded. A moment later the Dinosaur glided 
out over the field and rose in beautiful flight. 

It was just noon when the Governor’s airplane came 
to rest on the plains, above the Dinosaur Cave. A great 
crowd was gathered around the platform that had been 
built where two years before Hugh had camped in his 
quest for the triceratops. Leading Jessie between them, 
Hugh and Marten slowly moved up the draw that led from 
the landing-place of the plane to the platform. Johnny 
Parnell galloped out to meet them. 

“For the love of heaven, Governor, where have you 
been! What do you”—he stared at LIugh in hopeless dis¬ 
gust. “Do you think you can get up on the platform 
looking as if you’d been out all night? Not shaved, 
clothes— All kinds of rotten gossip started again about 
Pink and Jessie and you-” 

“O dry up, Johnny!” exclaimed Hugh. “Has Pink 
turned up?” 

“Yes. He looks worse than you do.” 

“Send him over here. Quickly, Johnny. I’ll explain 
everything later. Keep the crowd patient for a moment.” 

Johnny galloped away and a moment later, as Hugh and 



RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 355 

Marten eased Jessie against a boulder, Pink shambled 
through the snow and came to pause before them. 

“Pink,” said Hugh, “you’ve been acting like a skunk.” 

Pink looked at his son-in-law sullenly. “Who’s got a 
better right?” he asked. “Everything and everybody’s 
went back on me.” 

“This last escapade of yours smells to heaven. For 
your wife’s sake and my wife’s sake, we’ve got to stop 
the talk. And you’ve got to behave yourself, from now 
on. When these ceremonies are over, you go out to the 
ranch and see if you can fill in Johnny’s place.” 

“You mean Bookie’s ranch?” asked Pink, stupidly. 
“I’m still kind of drunk, Hughie.” 

“You aren’t too drunk to take orders. Both you and 
Jessie are to come up on the platform with me. We’ll 
settle this gossip for good and all.” 

Jessie stared from Hugh to her father and back again. 
A slow grin dawned on Marten’s face. Unheeded, he left 
the group and made his way toward the waiting audience. 
Pink’s face began to work. 

“You mean me on the platform, Hughie?” 

“Yes. Take Jessie’s other arm.” 

Tears began to roll down Pink’s mottled cheeks. “You 
mean me, on the platform, with you and Jessie, just like 
you didn’t hate me and I hadn’t ever done you dirt?” 

“Yes! Yes!” impatiently from Hugh. “Hurry, Pink!” 

Still the Governor’s father-in-law did not move. “I 
guess I must be drunker than I think I am, Hughie. It 
sounds too good to be true.” 

“Come, dad!” Jessie held her hand out to her father. 
“I’ve sprained my ankle. You’ll have to help me.” 

Pink sniffled and obeyed. 

They were a disheveled trio, but as they mounted the 
little platform and turned to face the crowd, no one 


356 THE EXILE OF THE LARIAT 

laughed. Leaving Jessie to lean on her father’s shoulder, 
Hugh stepped forward. 

“My wife had an accident,” he said clearly, “which 
delayed our getting here. Since Johnny Parnell has taken 
to politics, the horses up on the Dude Ranch have gone 
wild. One threw Mrs. Stewart early this morning and 
sprained her ankle. However, it probably won’t happen 
again because my father-in-law has agreed to go up there 
and take charge while Johnny is running the state Capitol.” 

Laughter that expressed a not inconsiderable amount 
of wonder swept the crowd. Hugh raised his hand. 

“Friends and neighbors,” he said, “I don’t suppose there 
is one among you that hasn’t some inkling of what it 
means to me to press the button which will set off the 
blast in the cave below. I fought a long fight with myself 
before I reached the point where I can stand here, believ¬ 
ing that the Old Sioux Tract, at last, is doing the work 
that Uncle Bookie would have been glad to have it do.” 
He paused. 

“By golly,” shouted Billy Chamberlain, “Hughie Stew¬ 
art is a man!” 

Such a burst of applause met Billy’s exclamation that 
Thumb Butte echoed again and again. And Hugh, lips 
slightly strained, placed his thumb on the electric button 
which lay on the table before him. 

A fearful detonation filled the air. 

When the dust had cleared away, the floor of the Dino¬ 
saur Cave lay naked to the heavens. 

The eagle who lived on the side of Thumb Butte sped in 
shocked flight into the blue zenith. 

Hugh turned to Jessie. “Let’s get back to The Lariat,” 
he said. 

Pink, no longer tearful, chin and chest up, helped Jessie 
into the automobile which was to take her and Hughie 


RIDING THE GRAY STALLION 357 

down to Fort Sioux. The crowd pressed close about the 
machine. 

“Do I ride down with you, Hughie?” asked Pink in a 
loud voice. 

“As you please, Pink/’ replied Hugh. 

Pink scrambled into the seat beside the driver, utterly 
deaf to the greetings of his old friends. 

‘Til take the wheel, Jimmie,” he said, “if there is any 
danger of your jarring Jessie’s ankle.” 

“You go to the devil,” said Jimmie Heckle, and he 
started the car carefully downward. 

Two hours later Hugh and Jessie unlocked the door of 
The Lariat. The red eye of the heater bade them welcome. 
Hugh settled Jessie in a chair, then stood looking down 
at her. 

“You are going back to Cheyenne with me tonight, 
Jessie?” he asked. 

Jessie did not answer this query immediately. “Hughie,” 
she said abruptly, “you were willing to sacrifice a good 
deal for me today.” 

Hugh’s eyes looked puzzled, but he smiled. “I suppose 
it’s sacrifice on my part to drag you round the country 
with a sprained ankle.” Suddenly he knelt beside her 
chair. “Jessie, do you know what today has taught me? 
It has taught me that I love you as a man should love his 
wife, passionately, Jessie,—and Oh! with what admiration 
and devotion.” 

He drew her toward him, and the endless rush of the 
river seemed to mingle with their close embrace. 


THE END 







































































































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